Exhibit spawns critical reassessment of West Coast-rooted pioneers of post-modern dance
The place to be in the dance world this past weekend was splendiforous Santa Barbara, California, for the opening of “Radical Bodies: Anna Halprin, Simone Forti, and Yvonne Rainer in California and New York, 1955-1972,” an exhibit at UC Santa Barbara’s AD&A Museum. Offering toasts, in photo above, to five years of research and writing, ...
‘Radical Bodies’ in California exhibit and on the streets of New York
Politics was not the intended focus of the day-long conference that opened “Radical Bodies: Anna Halprin, Simone Forti, and Yvonne Rainer in California and New York, 1955-1972,” an exhibit at UC Santa Barbara’s AD&A Museum. Art was. The hugely instructive exhibit unearths and traces the influence on American modern dance of three groundbreaking, bi-coastal dancer/choreographers. ...
Postcards from the beyond
Jan
26
2017
Carrie Fisher is gone. Debbie Reynolds is gone. Mike Nichols is gone. But on Thursday February 2 those dearly departed will send us a postcard from the beyond. A nice ‘homage’ screening of Nichols’s “Postcards From the Edge” (1990) at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. Carrie Fisher adapted her semi-autobiographical best-seller about an actress ...
Meg Stuart: female brutalism tinged by vulnerability
Jan
23
2017
At left, a portrait of the expatriate choreographer Meg Stuart who is visiting Los Angeles this week. Her bravura solo, “Hunter” will be performed at REDCAT this weekend. Many choreographers in Los Angeles will find Meg fascinating and real. I am personally very attracted by her distinctive brand of female brutalism — mixing raw emotion ...
Breathy new work by Lionel Popkin soon at Skirball
This looks like fun — and we’re big on fun. But in the hands of whimsical choreographer Lionel Popkin (he’s chair of the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance and professor of choreography and performance at UCLA) this pumped-up pagaent portends much more. “Inflatable Trio,” choreographed by Popkin and built on human breath, will soon ...
The two Georges: Balanchine & Chakiris
Okay, it’s a stretch! But bend-and-stretch is what dance is all about, isn’t it? Still, we were delighted to trip upon an amazing comparison, in a book review/essay by one of our premier dance writers, Joan Acocella. Publishing in The New Yorker magazine (“Balanchine Teaching” January 11, 2017), the critic/dance historian, in describing George Balanchine’s ...
Mozart’s magic to mend regrettable U.S.-Cuban cultural rift
Jan
19
2017
A truly inspirational story on the cusp of Inauguration Day comes from Sony Classical music. It’s a new album release, April 21, by pianist Simone Dinnerstein playing Mozart concerti with the Havana Lyceum Orchestra. In June, the Orchestra will also make its American debut in a series of concerts, the first time an orchestra of ...
Los Angeles in freeze frame, courtesy of photographer Michael Grecco
Jan
18
2017
Michael Grecco, an award-winning purveyor of commercial photography, fashion spreads and film direction is exhibiting, as part of LA’s month of photography, a new body of fine-art photography at the Leica Store LA. Printed larger than life, the viewer feels as though they can step into the photographs, and thus, into another realm into Los ...
‘Hollywood a Go Go’ mystery dancer ‘backs’ Marvin Gaye 1
Boogieing with insouciance, without so much as a glance at the performing artist — that would be Marvin Gaye — is arts·meme friend Steve Vilarino. Steve has his moment in the Zelig world as a studio dancer on Hollywood A Go Go, the short-lived television teen dance program dating from the mid 1960s. Steve’s aged ...
Boss talk on Strip in ’60s by Priore
Culture historian Domenic Priore, author of Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Last Stand in Hollywood, promises a “boss” time at his upcoming talk on the “Sixties on the Sunset Strip” on February 8. The illustrated lecture, free to the public, targets a specific moment between 1965 and 1966 when West Hollywood absorbed, then advanced, ...