Review: Karen Sherman’s “Soft Goods” @ CAP UCLA

Dance · Reviews
As the Freud Playhouse lost its moorings and ran amok in the final harrowing minutes of choreographer Karen Sherman’s “Soft Goods,” presented Saturday night at UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance, I’d be hard pressed to believe that the audience, too, did not become untethered. An out-of-control fog machine spewed smoke from stage to ...

Backstage building, courtesy of Karen Sherman @ CAP UCLA

Dance
Los Angeles dance fans have been tickled by Matthew Bourne’s front/backstage machinations in “The Red Shoes,” now on at the Ahmanson Theatre. Bourne cleverly uses a freestanding, and rotating, proscenium arch to physically separate the backstage drama from the show-biz pizzazz of performance. It’s a timely moment, then, to seek a smaller-scale, perhaps quieter, variation ...

Koplowitz’s ‘Learn Capture Repeat’ fun feature @ Dance Camera West

Dance · Film
This nice-looking guy, Stephan Koplowitz, a valued member of the Los Angeles dance community, is ready to give you your three seconds of fame in Learn, Capture, Repeat, his proprietary video project slated for this weekend’s Dance Camera West Festival. Wait till you see what Steve and his colleague, software designer Alan Price, can do ...

Hip-hop hors d’ouevres, courtesy of Dance Camera West festival 1

Dance · Film
We’re just about two weeks to blast-off for one of our favorite events of the annual calendar, the popular, fun and stimulating Dance Camera West film festival, an event that touches many in the dance community. The festival this year celebrates a biggie, its 15th anniversary, and a new association with the Center for the ...

Review: Antiquity updated in SOLUNA Fest’s ‘Rules of the Game’

Architecture & Design · Dance · Fashion · Film · Music · Reviews · Visual arts
Vulnerable humans cower in the debris of a humongous classical bust crashed to earth. An unnatural occurrence … like an airplane felled. Symbols of ancient civilization  — either Greek, Roman, or a modern approximation of both — tumble down, explode into shards. Not to worry; it’s all fake. It’s video art. This stunning and impactful ...

Anoushka!

Music
Virtuoso sitar player/composer Anoushka Shankar brings to Los Angeles her inimitable blend of classical Indian music crossed with flamenco, jazz, electronica and Western classical music. Always surrounded by the best-in-class musicians, Shankar’s concert bodes beauty and spirituality at Royce Hall. Anoushka and her band will perform selections from Land of Gold – a deeply personal ...

De Keersmaeker soon revealed in CAP UCLA retrospective

Dance
by 
New York Times dance critic Anna Kisselgoff once described Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker as “a cross between Lucinda Childs and Pina Bausch … a choreographer who makes you think and feel at the same time.” That was in 1986, the year that “Rosas danst Rosas” caused a sensation at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next ...

Biennale Golden Lion for De Keersmaeker

Dance
An alluring invitation just arrived from Italy. The occasion is the Venice Biennale’s granting of a Golden Lion award, perhaps the most acclaimed honor the art world has to bestow, to Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, on June 27. It was wonderful to see Judson Church pioneer Steve Paxton honored in a similar way ...

Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker to enjoy Los Angeles showcase

Dance
News from our Italian friends at the Dance section of the Biennale di Venezia forges an excellent fit with a major dance event just announced for the 2015-16 season at the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA in Los Angeles. The Biennale announced that choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker will be awarded the ...

Lovely ladies-in-motion from choreographer Kyle Abraham

Dance · Reviews
Both “The Watershed” and “When the Wolves Came in,” the paired set of dance programs by Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion presented at Royce Hall by the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, drew inspiration from serious political and social issues — racial injustice and resulting liberation struggles in the Civil Rights movement and the fight ...