Three smart women, one performing arts center
Jan
31
2011
This proud photo shows architect Kara Hill posing with her spanking-new creation, the Valley Performing Arts Center, which opened Saturday January 29, 2011, in the northern reaches of Los Angeles’s 500-square-mile radius. The Center sits on the south-east corner of the campus of California State University, Northridge, in the San Fernando Valley, the site of ...
What a piece of work is Hamlet!
I am attending “The Trial of Hamlet” this evening to determine the competency of the defendant to stand trial for the murder of Polonius. United States Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy will adjudicate this mock trial of Hamlet, Crown Prince of Denmark. The trial takes place tonight on the USC campus. [Justice Kennedy was nominated ...
Kalman show closing soon at Skirball
Jan
30
2011
The whimsical flotsam and jetsam of the graphic designer, magazine illustrator, children’s book writer and tchotchke collector Maira Kalman is on view at the Skirball Center through February 13. The impressive show, “Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World),” displays Kalman’s prodigious output. Yes, I bought Kalman’s illustrated Strunk and White at the gift shop. Because ...
Bodacious Brazilian bodies of Grupo Corpo
If you don’t speak Portuguese, but do speak slithering, sinuous, samba sensuality, you’re in good stead at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in downtown Los Angeles this weekend. Contemporary dance troupe Grupo Corpo, visiting from Brazil, is in the house. Grupo Corpo’s red-hot, audience-pleasing performance is part of the Glorya Kaufman Presents Dance at the Music ...
Virginia Johnson remembers her path to Dance Theatre of Harlem
Jan
27
2011
Dance Theater of Harlem Artistic Director Virginia Johnson, once the company’s tall prima ballerina — and she still has gorgeous gams — spoke today to a group of African-American dance students at the annual conference of the International Association of Blacks in Dance at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The classy Manhattan-ite told ...
“Scarecrow” cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond @ LACMA
Jan
23
2011
Following a double bill at LACMA so soulful and affecting that the feeling was beatific [“Electra Glide in Blue” & “Scarecrow” both from 1973], the museum hosted the great cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond for a talk. Zsigmond, in tandem with his compatriot Laszlo Kovacs, introduced a palette of mittel European muted natural light to Hollywood. According to ...
Polina Semionova, one of seven powerful female dancers of “Reflections” 1
Just back from “Reflections” at Orange County’s Segerstrom Center, a beautifully performed showcase for the spectacular skills of seven Bolshoi Academy-trained ballerinas and four of their male counterparts. Lots of vibrant creativity on display here — in a regrettably overly long program. (I never thought I’d write the words, ‘Cut the Balanchine,’ but here they ...
Hippies invade Hollywood! 3
Nostalgia loons decked out for flower power attended the closing weekend of the Pantages Theater’s fabulous production of “Hair.” wishes it were still 1968 where do i go? follow my heart … hippie chicks flower child peace baby ready for be-in just dropped acid Hair Tour Read my story on “Hair”‘s dancing including an interview ...
‘She asks me why, I’m just a hairy guy’ 2
HAIR has roots in Hollywood, and we don’t mean hair roots. We mean theatrical roots. In 1968, the West Coast premiere production opened on Sunset Boulevard, just two blocks from the Pantages, about six months following the production’s Broadway opening. The Aquarius Theatre, re-named in honor of one of the show’s hit songs, would be ...
Twyla Tharp’s “Aquarius” in Milos Forman’s HAIR 1
Preparing to interview Karole Armitage for an L.A. Times print edition tomorrow concerning her choreography for “HAIR,” I re-watched Twyla Tharp’s “Aquarius” from Milos Forman’s 1979 movie. Armitage wasn’t too keen on Tharp’s version. She told me so when we chatted. I like it a lot, however. arts·meme reader Gina Buntz, the dance chair of ...