Paul Taylor garners prestigious arts award
Oct
21
2012
New Yorkers gathered on October 3 to honor legendary choreographer Paul Taylor at a State Dinner at the iconic Lotos Club, founded in 1870. Mr. Taylor received the Medal of Merit, the Club’s highest honor given to leaders in the arts and cultural worlds. Past recipients include Gilbert and Sullivan, Ulysses S. Grant, Samuel Clemens, ...
Alice in La-La Land 3
Oct
21
2012
We were delighted to see that on her day off the lovely National Ballet of Canada ballerina, Sonia Rodriguez, who with her pristine arabesque did her best to lend sparkle to Christopher Wheeldon‘s lumbering three-act ballet, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” took a tour of our Wonderland-on-the-Pacific. Welcome to life through the looking glass, Sonia. The ...
Jerry Beck & the fine art of classic animation on TCM
Expert Jerry Beck defines classic animation as “theatrically-released studio or independent animated shorts and features from 1906 through roughly 1976.” The fun, arty fodder is getting its due this Sunday, October 21, with “Rare Animation,” a six-hour broadcast on Turner Classic Movies. Jerry, who blogs at cartoonbrew, co-hosts the evening with Robert Osborne. I had ...
Lurch on, Universal monsters!
Oct
17
2012
There have been frightening happenings at the film world’s Halloween Headquarters, also known as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — and they’re still going on. “A Monstrous Centennial,” the Academy’s month-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Universal Pictures, screening 13 classic horror classics, has reach mid-point. The series is augmented by ...
Sleaze as art: ‘Camera Night at the Ivar’ @ Drkrm Gallery 5
Hollywood’s Ivar Theatre — notorious, low-life, sleazy — presented crude peep shows, images of which I have interspersed in the slide show with ballet photography by renowned dance photog, Gene Schiavione. The images all feature the female body on explicit display. The Ivar strippers, and the men who clustered at the Hollywood theater to photograph ...
Wayne Shorter, sax man, jazz giant, honored by L.A. Jazz Society
Oct
15
2012
Wayne Shorter, multiple Grammy Award winner, saxophonist and composer, is the 2012 Jazz Tribute honoree of the Los Angeles Jazz Society’s 29th annual Jazz Tribute Awards Dinner & Concert set for Sunday, October 21, 2012. Leonard Maltin will host the festivities and Herbie Hancock serves as honorary chair. LAJS 2012 Jazz Tribute awardees include Lifetime ...
Jacaranda’s serious island-hopping season opener
Oct
9
2012
Renowned contemporary American composer Tobias Picker will narrate the West Coast premiere of his “The Encantadas,” a narrative with music inspired by Herman Melville’s novella of the same name, to open Jacaranda’s 2012-13 season. The Oct. 20 concert, dubbed “Different Islands,” will juxtapose Picker’s evocation of the unspoiled Galapagos Islands with Steve Reich’s “City Life,” ...
The Tramp meets the Dying Swan
Two great ‘movement artists, Charles and Anna, pose for a photo looking like something more than just “cordial colleagues.” The photo is dated 1922. Like this? Read more: Pavlov(a)’s dog of a movie. Anna Pavlova visits Hollywood Happy Birthday, Charlie Chaplin Charles Chaplin in China
Jam with Jimi Hendrix on Hollywood Boulevard
Oct
8
2012
From our friends at Larry Edmunds Bookshop on Hollywood Boulevard: Jimi Hendrix would have turned 70 this year. Author/editor Steven Roby who has written “Black Gold-the Lost Archives of Jimi Hendrix”, “Becoming Jimi Hendrix” & the fanzines “Straight Ahead-The International Jimi Hendrix Fanzine” & the family authorized “Experience Hendrix” fanzine now brings us “Hendrix on ...
Miracle on the 405: Mariinsky’s “Swan Lake” @ Segerstrom Center
Oct
7
2012
Yes, a miracle, not on 42nd Street but on the mighty 405 freeway in Costa Mesa, California. There, for a Sunday matinee, all was right with the (dance) world, as the Mariinsky Ballet (formerly the Kirov) offered a sensational journey through beauty and passion, sanity and civilization. Everything that dance can be was on offer ...