REVIEW: Lionel Popkin’s ‘Inflatable Trio’ at the Skirball 1

Dance · Reviews
Do you sense that things are changing in ways that make you uneasy? That even our most familiar modes of operating—what political pundits call “norms,” for example public civility—are in upheaval? Choreographer Lionel Popkin has made a dance about this. His charming and successful “Inflatable Trio,” a fun hour-long pageant for three dancers, premiered at ...

Georgeous & Rita-licious

Dance · Fashion · Film
As Oscar Sunday approaches, we turn to the year when two beautiful young singer/dancers both won Academy Awards for West Side Story. George Chakiris and Rita Moreno, respective winners for Best Actor and Actress in a Supporting Role, appeared stunningly beautiful at the ceremony  April 9, 1962 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. This is ...

Judy Garland’s admiration for Gwen Verdon’s husband

Dance
Recently researching dance history at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, I came across this nugget from Gwen Verdon. In an interview, Gwen recounted a story with droll wit, Judy Garland once said to me, “Oh your husband has done such a marvelous job!” And I said who??? Because I really did ...

Audience nods off at performance

Theater
In a brilliant illustration of a New York Times story, “Inside the Brutal World of Comedy Open Mikes,” photographer Christian Hansen captures a less-than-scintillated audience of three. The occasion was an ‘open mike’ session at a comedy club. Guys, we know the feeling!

Must see, must hear: Maria Schneider big band at VPAC 2

Music
by 
Maria Schneider’s ascendance is a Cinderella jazz story of sorts, albeit a long one. It surprises no one when she’s on the cover of Downbeat these days. But she first appeared as Best Original Composition award winner in the magazine’s 1984 student competition. Subsequently she’s become one of the most distinctive and evocative contemporary composers. ...

Sassy Chahine print enters life of arts·meme

Visual arts
A Sunday visit to the Los Angeles Fine Print Fair — seeking respite from the onslaught of Donald Trump —  to attend a public conversation between gallerist Jack Rutberg and artist Ruth Weisberg, spawned a new relationship! A fateful encounter with a wonderful teensy engraving, reproduced above. That in turn makes me the proud owner ...

Docu-worthy: Yvonne Rainer in ‘Feelings Are Facts’

Dance · Film
Oh jeez, in our nightmarish ‘new normal,’ an American existence in which mediocrity — so painful in a society in which political freedom enables the pursuit of excellence — rises to unimaginable levels; in which lies and blather pollute our air; in which values that can only be called contemptible predominate, into this setting enter ...

Klimt’s ‘Adele II’ rightly in private hands, says ‘Woman in Gold’ attorney 2

Visual arts
News of media mogul Oprah Winfrey’s recent sale of Gustav Klimt’s “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II,” for a massive $150 million was the buzz of the art world this week. Bloch-Bauer died in 1925, and her Klimt paintings passed, against her wishes, to the Austrian state during the Nazi regime. Her descendants, led by her ...

Oprah Winfrey tires of Klimt masterpiece, sells to China

Visual arts
Our dear (if somewhat fatigued) Adele Bloch-Bauer, the subject of two stellar portraits by artist Gustav Klimt, is again packing her suitcases  … this time headed to China. One decade ago she made the rather massive move from the walls of the Belvedere Palace museum in Vienna, first to Los Angeles, then to New York ...

Pasadena Museum of California Art goes to the beach

Visual arts
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Our winter is unusually wet and cold at the moment, making visits to our beaches prohibitive. The evocative exhibition at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, “In the Land of Sunshine: Imaging the California Coast Culture” (through February 19), will punch the emotional buttons of anyone who has sand in the shoes of their psyche. ...