Rebecca Bruno’s walk around time at the Norton Simon Museum
I like costumes and coifed hair on dancers. Big thumbs up. That’s only one reason I so enjoyed dancer/choreographer Rebecca Bruno’s solo outing, “Unfinished” at the Norton Simon Museum last Saturday afternoon. The intriguing hour-long work set to cool music by Sam Widaman and atmospheric scenic design and lighting by Yann Novak also came equipped with ...
Michael Vlatkovich’s unpredictable musical universe @ the Hammer
Michael Vlatkovich’s idiosyncratic music balances the meticulous writer with the laissez faire bandleader. The trombonist/composer has the uncommon luxury of convening seven pieces at the Hammer Museum’s free JazzPOP series this coming Thursday night. Drummer Chris Garcia, who has played with Vlatkovich since 1991, recalls a tour. “We had a new bass player,” Garcia says. ...
At Central Opera House, Cole choreographed ‘Bonanza Bound’
The former Central Opera House at 205 East 67th Street in New York City, pictured above. Here Jack Cole labored to create dance numbers for a notorious Broadway bomb, Bonanza Bound (1947). The turkey, however, had top talent behind it. A very rare musical flop by Comden and Green. After their astonishing rise from cabaret ...
The sound of America, courtesy of MUSE/IQUE
Enough of politicians yammering about being American! Let’s experience our national spirit in a much more intuitive manner, through art. Chamber-music series MUSE/IQUE is here to help. Established in 2011 by artistic director Rachael Worby (at left), the Pasadena-based MUSE/IQUE presents a three-concert summer lawn-festival across a dizzying array of genres — classical, ballet, jazz. ...
“Phantom Limb” group show @ Narzarian’s
Aug
2
2016
Trenton Doyle Hancock, The Referee, 2014, Acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 66 inches x 108 inches. Courtesy of Hales Gallery, London This vivid and jam-packed work in acrylic paint part of an intriguing-looking new group show at Shulamith Nazarian gallery in Venice. Phantom Limb include works by the prolific Houston-based Trenton Doyle Hancock, as ...
A tradition of dance carries forth at the Norton Simon
Shiva as Lord of Dance (Nataraja), c. 1000 India: Tamil Nadu, 975-1025 Bronze 31-3/4 x 24 in. (80.6 x 61.0 cm) The Norton Simon Foundation This gorgeous statuary — Shiva, as the Lord of Dance — reigns supreme in the Norton Simon Museum’s distinctive collection of Asian art, and has done so for many years. ...
Jeff Parker’s guitar twists & turns @ The Blue Whale
Jeff Parker knows about harmonic color. His current CD, The New Breed (International Anthem Recording Company) is lush with it. It hangs like audible clouds, created by slow-moving electronic keyboard backgrounds, nudged along by discreet electric bass currents, and seeded by Parker’s pungent single-note improvisations. The KORG MS20 adds grainy keyboard impasto to those scrims ...
Gypsy dancer shop-talk at the Academy
It was a night of dance chatter at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. A highly vaunted circle, including veteran gypsy dancers, a choreographer for the camera, and an Oscar-winning actor, gathered at AMPAS prior to a screening of “West Side Story” Monday July 18, 2016. In the photo, Maria Jimenez, who danced ...
‘Group’ therapy … at the movies
Jul
24
2016
Good to get this announcement from Laemmle Anniversary Classics… ***** At a time when critics lament the poor roles for women on screen, Laemmle Anniversary Classics is rolling out a goodie: a celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Group, a rare Hollywood movie to center on eight intelligent, spirited, well-educated women. The film is ...
Kirk Douglas, the actor and the man
Jul
21
2016
A guest writer on the blog, Shannon Kelley, Head of Public Programs for the UCLA Film & Television Archive, contributes this appreciation of actor Kirk Douglas. The Archive is mid-stream in a comprehensive Douglas retrospective that runs through September. KIRK DOUGLAS: A CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, commemorates the career and the life of the great Hollywood star, ...