Olé, Olga Pericet!
Sep
11
2019
Ed. note: This story by artsmeme’s Debra Levine was written for The Ford Theatres and originally published as “A Flamenco Dynamite.” Flamenco is bursting with vitality—a new generation has contemporized the centuries-old form. So it’s fitting that the “new world” setting of the Ford Amphitheatre should welcome to its midst a foremost practitioner of “nuevo ...
Strong women of Los Angeles dance set to unfurl at Ford 1
Aug
13
2019
ed. note: This excerpt of a story by artsmeme’s Debra Levine was first published by Ford Theatres A peevish story in The New York Times started the ball rolling for Los Angeles dance producer Deborah Brockus. When Brockus read a lengthy #metoo article decrying the dearth of female choreographers, she felt fired up. But not ...
REVIEW: Savion Glover sizzling at the Ford 2
It is a Dance Criticism 401 assignment describing Savion Glover in performance — savagely fit, in top form, at his most forthcoming. Words fall short. Yet that is what we had at Saturday’s festive season-opener of the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre. The refurbished Ford’s long commitment to dance, season after season presenting local and visiting ...
Savion Glover vs. Ford Amphitheatre soundwall
Jul
13
2017
A sound-worthy evening awaits us Saturday as the beloved John Anson Ford Amphitheatre is poised and ready for its festive inaugural season-opening night, a re-opening after a major retrofit. A noisy tumult normally accompanies an event at the Ford, which is set in a natural hollow of the Cahuenga Pass, but faces off with a ...
Walking with Trane and Urban Bush Women … at the Ford
Aug
23
2016
The “dance voices” of strong women will make a clarion call Saturday evening at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in a double pairing of dance companies offering not just glitzy surface but real content, story, mythology in a thoughtful program of contemporary dance. The evening’s main offering is the 30-year-old Urban Bush Women, straight outta ...
Forever Flamenco, Forever Ford Amphitheatre
Jul
20
2016
What is not to love about Saturday night at the newly refurbished Ford Amphitheatre for “Forever Flamenco”? The distinguished flamenco presentation series normally based at the Fountain Theatre in Hollywood transfers every summer to the plein air setting of the Ford. There’s been a jog for the upgrade of the facility and we’ve been missing ...
Ford Amphitheatre’s new summer season, a cause to rejoice
May
31
2016
Only in Los Angeles, on the grapevine of the Hollywood Freeway as it cuts a swathe from city to Valley, would a “summer season” extend through October 15. It happens, outdoors, at L.A.’s annual multicultural arts festival — the beloved and historic John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, now on the cusp of reopening after a two-year ...
Behave! or Isaac de Los Reyes will burn a hole in your soul
Jul
15
2015
We love ‘Forever Flamenco’ — whether in its grandstand production at the (now under renovation) John Anson Ford Theatre, or in its cozy Hollywood home, the 80-seat summer sweat-box of sensual Spanish stagecraft, aka the Fountain Theatre. This weekend, ‘Forever,’ produced by Deborah Lawlor and James Bennett, presents Isaac De Los Reyes — a special ...
A hillside wonderland: John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in transition
Jun
1
2015
We recently spoke to our friend Kim Glann, Productions Marketing Manager at the beloved John Anson Ford Theatres, managed by the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. We learned that the landmark amphitheatre is closed, closed, closed for renovations this summer. Warning: if you go there by mistake, you’ll have to carry your picnic basket across ...
Critic’s round-up: Indian Jazz Suites, Laguna’s ‘Stars of Dance’ 1
L.A.’s big dance weekend — it had the dance-infatuated scampering up the heights of Bunker Hill, across the Cahuenga Pass and down Laguna way — has come to its close. Certainly the weekend’s big draw was the launch of a new contemporary dance company, Ezralow Dance, an event that also closed the Ford Amphitheatre for a ...