Cirque du Soleil’s swell Hollywood opening night party
artsmeme’s debra levine & hollywood dance historian larry billman Fun photos of the super party the Cirques threw in Los Angeles last night posted below. The mighty Montreal’eans upped and closed, from car traffic, a humongous stretch of Hollywood Boulevard in front of the Kodak Theater. There, under a tent, to thumping, hypnotic music, attendees ...
News: David Hallberg Bolshoi contract details leaked!
Sep
24
2011
Our top-secret Russian connections have reported back to arts·meme global headquarters with little-known details of the David Hallberg/Bolshoi Theatre contract. It’s all in the fine print! While bringing the boyish blonde bombshell into the Bolshoi Ballet fold, there have been, shall we say, glitches. The Russians expressed skepticism, yes, ~ suspicion, distrust ~ about the ...
Look at the amazing building we are getting in Los Angeles!
Philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad and architect Elizabeth Diller today unveiled the designs of The Broad Art Foundation, a contemporary art museum on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. Designed by world-renowned architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the three-story museum features a unique porous honeycomb “veil” that wraps the building and is visible through an ...
Tutu Taylor
It was a hell of a week for ballet. Our most brilliant male ballet dancer, a true wunderkind, a homegrown wonder, David Hallberg, got a job offer from the Bolshoi Ballet, better, obviously, than his current gig with American Ballet Theatre. So off he goes. Hallberg’s young, 29, he doesn’t speak the language, and Russia ...
Backward-leaning Bolsheviks, er…Bolshoi men
The hiring of David Hallberg by the Bolshoi Ballet, founded in the late 18th century, is being trumpeted as a sign of Russian openness and progress. But an arts·meme investigation indicates that rather than Hallberg moving the stodgy Russians forward, they are already pulling him back. Please refer to the image at left in which ...
More aching ballet-world news: Edward Villella to retire from his great achievement, Miami City Ballet, after next season 2
Sep
22
2011
Just as we digest the news that ABT’s young prince, David Hallberg, will dance only part of his season in the U.S. and spend the preponderant part in Moscow, along comes a startling piece of dance news, an announcement from Miami. Another prince of ballet, this one a veteran, Edward Villella, will retire at the ...
What makes a balletomane? A lean.
Sep
21
2011
If when peering at this Andrea Mohin photo for the New York Times … ~your heart picks up pace, ~ it messes you up, ~ you “get it,” ~ you feel deep joy … seeing the way that David Hallberg is leaning away from his “Giselle” partner, Natasha Osipova, well then … mazel tov, you’re ...
Invertigo Dance Theatre’s fun with clutter
Sep
21
2011
This image (clickable) from Invertigo Dance Theatre’s upcoming “Fun in Limbo” caught my eye. The amusing furniture-mountain was inspired, says choreographer Laura Karlin, by the Mother of all Hoarders, Miss Havisham, from Dickens’s Great Expectations. The nutty pile of junk gives physical form to the insane overabundance of data and objects swirling ’round all of ...
How could this happen? David Hallberg joins Bolshoi Ballet 2
Sep
21
2011
In a tremendous blow to American ballet, our best home-grown talent, literally a corn-fed farm boy from South Dakota, David Hallberg, 29, announced today that he is joining the Bolshoi Ballet. Ka-thunk. This caps off, in one stunning announcement, twenty years, at a minimum, of Europe stealing the U.S.’s thunder as the global bastion of ...
Hans Burkhardt survey exhibition @ Jack Rutberg Fine Arts
Sep
20
2011
“Untitled,” 1953 oil on canvas, 31 x 36 inches Hans Burkhardt’s (1904–1994) expansive career and influence in Los Angeles is the focus of a survey exhibition of paintings and drawings entitled Hans Burkhardt: Within & Beyond the Mainstream. The exhibition participates in the Getty Research Institute’s Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945 – 1980. ...