Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet

29 June 2009

Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet

Category: Dance, Reviews | Tags: american dance festival, cedar lake contemporary ballet, israeli dance, jewish culture, nea dance criticism institute, ohad naharin

Visions of Israel inevitably surface while watching “Decadance,” Ohad Naharin’s perennial greatest-hits collection of choreographic output since the 1980s. [...]

13 May 2009

Biblical love

Category: Dance, Music | Tags: eric zeisl, jewish culture

Biblical lovers Jacob and Rachel inspire a dance/music event at Wadsworth Theater next Tuesday May 19 — the delayed premiere of a lively, colorful, and full-bodied ballet score written by composer Eric Zeisl in 1954. [...]

15 January 2009

Jewish prince of Hollywood

Category: Film | Tags: carl laemmle, evening at the barn, hollywood history, irving thalberg, jewish culture, mark viera, marx bros, norma shearer

About Irving Thalberg, the boy wonder film producer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). [...]

29 June 2008

Jewish geography

Category: Language & ideas | Tags: daniel mendelsohn, jewish culture, jewish geography, peter eisenman

I immensely enjoyed Jewish Geography, the festival of ideas — and shmoozing — held on the UCLA campus Sunday.

The festival posed difficult questions that trouble diaspora Jews, especially we Americans who survived the genocide of Europe and who evade the current mess in Israel.

I most enjoyed the panel “Things Past: Memory & [...]