MoMA plots Jerry Lewis movie-birthday-bash 1
Feb
7
2016
Jerry Lewis turns 90 on March 16, 2016. That provides Museum of Modern Art film curator Dave Kehr with a solid reason to honor this most American of cinema artists with a career retrospective. Lewis’s best movies, all presented in rare 35mm prints, will be amped by special features: outtakes, screen tests, home movies, and ...
Thank you, New York! It ended with THE I DON’T CARE GIRL 4
A force stronger than Jack Cole — Mother Nature — caused the rescheduling of snow-cancelled programs, giving a new finale to “All That Jack (Cole)” at The Museum of Modern Art. The closing picture was THE I DON’T CARE GIRL, a “B” movie musical whose titular dance number, as I wrote on MoMA’s “Inside/Out” blog, ...
Life is sweet: “La Dolce Vita” turns 55 1
Feb
6
2016
Laemmle Theatres celebrates one of the first foreign films to figure prominently in the Academy Award voting. La Dolce Vita earned four Oscar nominations in 1962, including Best Director Federico Fellini and Best Original Screenplay and it won the Oscar for Piero Gherardi’s elegant costumes. Fellini’s sardonic epic about the decadence of modern Rome was ...
Check it … check your body
Check Your Body at the Door, a film conceived by dance historian Sally R. Sommer and dancer Archie Burnett, documents some of the remarkable House dancing styles in New York’s underground scene in the 1990s. Through interviews and rare dance footage, “Check Your Body” memorializes the enduring legends of House dance and contextualizes a wide ...
From “Fame” to “Freeze Frame,” Debbie Allen ties dance to real world
Dance critic Gillian Anne Renault anticipates Debbie Allen’s “Freeze Frame” at The Wallis. I first fell in love with three-time Emmy Award-winner Debbie Allen when she choreographed and acted in the 1980s escapist TV series “Fame.” Now, decades later, after a wide-ranging career, she’s taking on big, serious issues far removed from the rarefied atmosphere ...
Barrie Chase meets Fred Astaire once again
Hollywood dancer/actress Barrie Chase, in New York for appearances at “All That Jack (Cole),” the historic film-retrospective now on offer at The Museum of Modern Art, burst into a spontaneous expression of physical joy at the sight of the Fred Astaire caricature in Ed Sorel’s mural at The Monkey Bar on East 54th Street. Barrie, ...
L.A. Dance Project to dance in L.A.
Some are still in a huff about Benjamin Millepied’s decision, in 2014, to leave Los Angeles and L.A. Dance Project, the much-hyped dance collective he co-founded less than two years earlier. But how could he not accept the offer to be dance director of the Paris Opera Ballet, one of the world’s oldest and most ...
Barrie Chase: a beautiful doll who danced for Jack Cole
She’s a dancer’s dancer, a real stunner. The ballet-trained Barrie Chase was the leggiest creature since Cyd Charisse to hit the Hollywood gypsy-dance circuit when she got a gig as a chorus dancer in Vincent Minnelli‘s KISMET (1955). The choreographer? The great Jack Cole whom The Museum of Modern Art is honoring in All That ...
Architects discuss the art (and politics) of performing arts centers
Performing arts centers define our cities and serve as architectural landmarks. These landmarks can rapidly transform the cultural and economic fabric of a city, bringing renewed prosperity as well as design inspiration. What is the essence of an iconic performing arts center? Enjoy a lively discussion combined with a memorable concert, and light refreshments. Moderator Thomas Small, ...