Classics of COL*COA 2015
Apr
21
2015
The wonderful French film festival in Los Angeles, COL*COA (City of LIghts*City of Angels), a big favorite chez arts·meme, kicked off its 19th edition last night with a baguette-et-fromage-strewn cocktail hour in the lobby of the Director’s Guild of America. A fun flick, a gothic thriller, “The Ideal Man,” opened the festival. Now a nine-day ...
Stellar dance company keeps Martha Graham forever young
Apr
20
2015
Wow, Martha Graham. Your excellence, exactitude and relevance entered a new era as the vigorous and beautifully trained dancers of Martha Graham Dance Company simply shined in a well-selected repertory evening, Saturday, at Valley Performing Arts Center. Onto the generous and beautifully lit VPAC stage, before a notably rapt, sold-out audience, paraded the latest crop ...
Gloria Cheng’s solo flight @ Piano Spheres
Apr
17
2015
photo credit: Los Angeles Times We’ve cruised through many chamber-music concerts spellbound by the exceptional artistry of pianist Gloria Cheng whose nearly demonic devotion to contemporary classical music invariably ramps up the entire evening … and she only plays with the best. But we’ve never enjoyed the pleasure of the Great Gloria in solo concert. ...
Oh Samuel Lee Roberts, you beautiful Alvin Ailey dancer
Apr
16
2015
The pleasure of watching the splendid and just-gorgeous dancers of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre at the company’s opening night performance at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion drove home how much time I have been spending looking at images of dancers on a computer. And how that is not the real deal. To get the full ...
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 ...
Dance Camera West to spool classic ballet flick, “The Unfinished Dance”
Everything is beautiful at the ballet. Except at the movies. In the movies, for some confounded reason, the world of pretty-in-pink turns blood red. It’s a parade of backstage drama awash in envy, rage, depression, jealousy, backstabbing, unkindness — and that’s just the light stuff. At worst, there are full-on murderous attacks, vengeful fits and ...
George Chakiris brings “West Side Story” to the wild west
Just returned from a wonderful screening of the majestic movie musical from 1961, “West Side Story,” seen in an unusual setting, The Ellen Theatre, a rare, preserved vaudeville theater in Bozeman, Montana. The movie’s Academy Award-winning star, the actor-singer-dancer George Chakiris, took part in a long interview and audience Q & A session. The enthusiastic ...
How now, Shirley MacLaine @ TCM Fest 2015
Shirley MacLaine made a few appearances at this year’s TCM Classic Film Festival, and she enthralled audiences with her candor. She revealed that when she first received the script for the Oscar-winning film, The Apartment, it was only 29 pages long. Director Billy Wilder and his longtime writing partner, I.A.L. Diamond, continued writing as filming ...
High-profile Los Angeles showcases for choreographer Andonis Foniadakis
Apr
6
2015
We’ve not yet experienced the ballets of Andonis Foniadakis, born in Crete and dance-educated in Athens. But on an upcoming April weekend we’ll get a very good opportunity. Two recent works by Foniadakis will be delivered by world-class dance companies, each performing at Los Angeles’s distinctively beautiful new theaters from April 16 – 18, 2015. ...
Billie Holiday in Los Angeles: the blues were brewing 2
Billie Holiday and her dog Mister, New York, c. June 1946, William P. Gottleib One of the greatest jazz singers who ever lived had a small voice, never more than 15 notes at her disposal, and recorded many throwaway tunes. But Billie Holiday (1915-1959) was great by virtue of her sure-footed musical gifts: behind-the-beat phrasing, ...