Gilliam’s brilliant, bonkers Berlioz @ ENO
Bombastic imaginations, bonkers juxtapositions, no attention to rules of deportment, and energy without limit. It would seem that Hector Berlioz and Terry Gilliam are a match made.. well, somewhere .. but certainly for each other. Following the wild and wooly success of his Damnation of Faust in 2011, Gilliam has trained his most particular talents ...
Tuesday is Wendy-day
Jun
6
2014
It’s always nice to have a special visitor from New York, in this case our good friend, the longtime editor of “Dance” Magazine, Wendy Perron. Next Tuesday evening, Wendy will join forces with a stellar line up of dance thinkers and dance talkers: the great dancer/dance maker Simone Forti and choreographer/educator Victoria Marks. It all ...
Find openness & clarity through art @ Honor Fraser Gallery
Jun
4
2014
An intriguing and beautiful show that celebrates a cool-headed, fresh visual arts language dating back half a century opens this weekend at Honor Fraser Gallery on La Cienega Boulevard. Openness and Clarity pays tribute to the legacy of ‘Color Field’ artists who paved the way for Minimalism, Conceptual, and Pop art. Assembling works rarely exhibited ...
“You’re no spring chicken,” Bette Davis told Gena Rowlands in 1979 5
May
31
2014
So incredible, Wednesday evening, to see the great Gena Rowlands in person, interviewed by film critic Steven Farber after a screening of her historic tour de force performance in “A Woman Under the Influence.” As part of a long conversation, Rowlands spoke with great warmth about her memories of Bette Davis, with whom she co-starred ...
Rumble at “Last Remaining Seats” with “West Side Story”
We’re very thrilled to announce that arts·meme‘s Debra Levine will conduct a very special interview with the Academy Award-winning actor/dancer George Chakiris, a good friend of the blog, prior to the screening of West Side Story (1961) on Saturday June 14. The classic movie-musical is the jewel in the crown of this summer’s “Last Remaining ...
Dance Camera West’s “Restructure” festival to kick off with stylish sculptural dance 3
Wow, Dance Camera West! If this image does not capture the coolest vision of dance-of-the-future, then we must not be in the midst of the go-go dance explosion happening right now in Los Angeles. We sure are excited to see performances by BODYTRAFFIC on the crazy “structure” artist Gustavo Godoy has created on a commission ...
Revisiting movie “classics” that aren’t 4
It’s almost a dare. A film festival, in this case TCM Classic Film Festival 2014, which virtually took over Hollywood Boulevard for five days this past May, declares, in its title, its focus on movie “classics.” Nothing but “classics.” Really? Consider that perhaps a few of those “classics” are overrated. Then consider that some are ...
An influential woman still and always: Gena Rowlands
May
24
2014
Looking forward to attending a special screening, next Wednesday evening, of A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1974), a landmark film directed by John Cassavetes and featuring a groundbreaking and courageous performance by actress Gena Rowlands. The film was one of the first preserved by the National Film Registry because of its cultural significance. Rowlands will ...
ENO ‘Cosi’ conjured at Coney Island
How do you solve a problem like Cosi — Mozart’s Job-like musical glory of messing with the minds of two women on a bet, just to prove that they’re “like that”? In the words of Peter Sellars, prior to his revisionist diner production more than twenty years ago: “Is this the most offensive anti-feminist opera ...
arts·meme turns six 1
May
20
2014
A sparkling ‘Shirley Temple’ for arts·meme, the Los Angeles arts blog that came into existence on May 24, 2008. The young lady, having formally entered café society, here hoists a cocktail in commemoration of her sixth birthday. Happy birthday, arts·meme! Kudos and hugs around to arts·meme technology guru, Beijing-based Mark Levine; Heap Big Technology Friend ...