The lion sleeps tonight. Then he roars. Then he dances.
The lion roars at Clifton’s Cafeteria, relaunching in downtown L.A.photo: Harald Kanz Bradley Shelver in Japanese Spear Dance by Ted Shawn (1919)photo Julie Lemberger Tough times bring out the beast. There were lion viewings on both Coasts two weekends ago. On the Left Coast, the lion roars in a new installation at recently re-re-furbished Clifton’s ...
You go, Ruth & Ted! Denishawn revisited
It’s time to show some respect to Mom and Dad. In the lovable, but mildly dysfunctional family that is American modern dance, we kids all descend from the same parents. Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn were two brave souls who saw, then sought, a world beyond their respective birthplaces in rural New Jersey and ...
Gorgeous! Ruth St. Denis headdress in Denishawn costume show 2
The headdress from Ruth St. Denis’s 1919 Chinese-inspired “Kuan Yin,” with buttons, feathers and artificial pearls. credit David Dashiell for the New York Times. Dance writer Gia Kourlas writes in the New York Times about an exhibit of 30 costumes worn by Denishawn dancers under the aegis of Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. The ...
A house tinged by antisemitism: Denishawn 2
Mar
24
2018
Excerpted from: Humphrey, Doris, “Doris Humphrey: An Artist First,” an autobiography edited and completed by Selma Jeanne Cohen (Wesleyan University Press, Middletown CT), 1972, pp 61-62. The summer of 1928 Charles [Weidman] and I were teaching the classes at the Carnegie Hall studio, while Pauline [Lawrence] played piano. The students were stimulated by our enthusiasm ...
How George Martin found first dance job — in the Yellow Pages
Sep
25
2017
Debra Levine lectures on Jack Cole’s “The Gladiators” dancers: Rod Alexander, Jack Cole, George Martin A wonderful sliver of dance history sourced at New York Public Library for the Performing Arts concerns Jack Cole dancer George Martin. Said Martin, in an interview, apropos the start of his dance career: “My mother took me to see ...
This was Denishawn
May
31
2015
We’re looking forward to spending an evening — picnic and free music concert — at outdoor-amphitheater Levitt Pavilion Los Angeles in MacArthur Park on June 12. Does everyone know the rich dance history of that neighborhood, whose prior name “Westlake” derived from the beautiful urban lake that the park surrounds? Read this, first, from the ...
The great Graham’s California roots
Apr
15
2015
In my “pre-talk” prior to Martha Graham Dance Company‘s performance at Valley Performing Arts Center this Saturday night, I make the case that the impact and duration of Graham’s career start-up in Los Angeles has gone woefully under reported. Here Graham poses with her first partner, Ted Shawn, in “Malaguena” (1921) — in a California ...
Mitchell Leisen’s first design project? A costume for Martha Graham!
Los Angeles has long been an arts beehive, dating back to the 1910s when modern-dance goddess Martha Graham and film director Mitchell Leisen converged here. We enjoyed receiving this amazing Los Angeles dance-film anecdote from Norton Owen, a friend of arts·meme and the Director of Preservation at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. Writes Norton: I am ...
Where industry meets the arts
E.O. Hoppé, Large Alternator, Siemens-Schuckert werk, Gartenfeld, Germany, 1928 Unknown photographer, GE Plant in Schenectady, 1934. Features Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers (Shawn at center) Hoppe photo credit: E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection, courtesy Graham Howe Shawn photo courtesy, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Archive, courtesy Norton Owen Like this? Read more: Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival ...
Congratulations, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival! 1
Mar
1
2011
President Barack Obama will tomorrow honor Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival with a National Medal of Arts, the highest arts award given by the United States Government. The medals will be presented by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama in an East Room ceremony at the White House on March 2 at 1:45pm, streamed ...