What the performing arts look like in Los Angeles
A post-performance picture captures the youth and vigor of the performing arts in Los Angeles today. Review of the concert one post below, or click here. With Miguel Perez, Lillian Rose Barbeito, Ja-Young Jessie Kim, Merett Miller Shah, Melissa Bourkas, Hai Kai, Andrew Cowan, Andrew Wojtal and Tina Finkelman Berkett at The Walt Disney Concert ...
REVIEW: The Los Angeles Philharmonic dances! 2
A big week for dance in Los Angeles: first came the premiere of L.A. Dance Project under the direction of Benjamin Millepied. Then followed Thursday’s symphony gala celebrating what Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel called, in pre-concert remarks, “a union of the arts.” Dance shared the stage, rather marvelously, with our symphony orchestra. Grand ...
Guillermo del Toro’s horrific evening @ The Academy
Sep
26
2012
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is hosting an October-long celebration of classic horror films in honor of “Universal’s Legacy of Horror”- part of the studio’s year-long 100th anniversary celebration. Writer-director Guillermo del Toro, a true aficionado of the horror-genre will host the kick-off screening celebrating the studio that defined horror films. The ...
Benjamin & Natalie go to the ballet
Sep
24
2012
That would be the dancer-choreographer Benjamin Millepied and his wife the blonde actress, er … the actress Natalie Portman. And here’s is what they went to see: the debut of L.A. Dance Project, a new repertory dance company headed up by Millepied. The boutique troupe of six dancers presented a stimulating and credible evening of ...
Daughter Judy … Jane, his wife! Meet the Jetsons, 50 years later. 1
Gotta admit I was blown away to learn that “The Jetsons,” the venerable prime-time cartoon show that lasted all of one television season, turns fifty years old tomorrow. The show, a huge American cultural event, first aired on September 23, 1962. Talkin’ ’bout my generation…. The insane hyped-up theme song, the lyrics for which got ...
Our great choreographer Merce Cunningham explained 2
Sep
20
2012
I’m in a Cunningham frame of mind. Please enjoy and learn from this wonderful Cunningham tribute by Alastair Macaulay, the chief dance critic of the New York Times.
Merce Cunningham’s “Winterbranch” by L.A. Dance Project 2
Sep
20
2012
SEPT 29 2012 UPDATE: CONCERT REVIEWED ON THE HUFFINGTON POST HERE. A wonderful dark and gloomy photo of Merce Cunningham’s “Winterbranch” (1964) with early cast members Carolyn Brown and Gus Solomons, Jr. We’ll watch the re-staging of this High Cunningham classic this weekend courtesy of L.A. Dance Project, the newly launched repertory dance company sponsored ...
Fly away, String Theory, fly away …
Sep
19
2012
The adventurous dance + music ensemble String Theory assembles its massive stringed harp instrument for a site specific performance piece at the Van Nuys Fly Away this coming weekend. Heidi Duckler’s troupe just performed at the mass transit hub as well. String Theory’s work, “Compositions of Sound and Space,” promises to infuse the plaintive bus ...
Only Marvin Hamlisch was missing. Pasadena Pops honors conductor.
A concert that culminates with the great lyricist Alan Bergman crooning in aching nostalgia The Way We Were, a song that he, his writing partner and wife Marilyn, and composer Marvin Hamlisch co-wrote for Barbra Streisand, is an event I’m interested in attending. Bergman is so special, a poet, really. The Pasadena Symphony’s high-quality tribute ...
How the Stones rolled through L.A.
Found: Photographs of the Rolling Stones, a month-long exhibition of twenty-six rare and candid photographs that document the Rolling Stones on their first American tour in 1964 opens soon at Dilettante, a creative theatre and gallery located in Compton. The Stones photo-booty was discovered in an unmarked box at a Central California estate sale — ...