Docu honors Gospel music, born in America, underpinning jazz and blues
Jul
3
2011
As a teen, I had my first exposure to gospel music listening to Sunday broadcasts on Pittsburgh’s black radio station, WAMO. So I wouldn’t miss the documentary film, Rejoice & Shout: Those beautifully named gospel singing groups — The Mighty Clouds of Joy, The Dixie Hummingbirds, The Soul Stirrers. Why don’t dance companies have ...
REVIEW: Rennie Harris’s “REIGN” rains on China
A woman stands at stage center, her knee-length black dress draping loosely over trousers. She’s trembling. Flashing lights — a disco? faux lightening? — cut the stage’s darkness. The sound of thunder, then rain, pours from the speakers. It’s loud, overpowering. The woman suffers, she’s convulsing; her corn-rowed hair flies in the syncopated rhythm. A ...
Ah, Ian. Ian Birnie’s swan song @ LACMA this month 1
Jul
1
2011
It’s a sad and bittersweet moment. We’re down to the last weekend film series curated by LACMA’s great film department head, Ian Birnie. The 41-year old program, a landmark of high cinephilic culture, is giving way to a new structure, delivered in tandem with Film Independent and headed by the film critic Elvis Mitchell. There ...
Seen at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival
Jun
30
2011
artsmeme thanks the joffrey ballet for the funny foto
What to feed a U.S. dance company overseas 1
Jun
29
2011
You’re on an international dance tour, and it’s a pretty small life. I know this because I just had the great good fortune to accompany Lula Washington Dance Theatre in China last month. Life boils down to: What time in the morning do you have to put your luggage in hotel lobby? Hey, what’s on ...
Merce Cunningham Dance Company journeys to Jerusalem and Moscow
Jun
29
2011
A special report from arts•meme foreign correspondent Anna Finke, traveling with Merce Cunningham Dance Company. By day, Anna works as MCDC’s wardrobe supervisor and photographer. She blogs at Finke-Ink. Anna writes first on visiting Israel: We were all excited to take in this new country and the Jerusalem Season of Culture was a wonderful host. ...
George Chakiris remembers West Side Story in advance of 50th anniversary screening @ Hollywood Bowl
Prior to next week’s “West Side Story” night at the Hollywood Bowl — a screening of the ten-Oscar-winning, Bernstein-Robbins-Sondheim-Laurent film celebrating its 50th year anniversary — it’s a great pleasure to post L.A. renaissance guy Tom Gregory‘s lovely interview with Bernardo, er… the wonderful George Chakiris. At the Bowl, the Los Angeles Philharmonic will play ...
Mick Jagger’s ‘Exile,’ says fellow traveler John Van Hamersveld, named in downtown Los Angeles 1
Who knew? When we were high school kids in suburban Pittsburgh in 1972, devouring the images on the cover of The Rolling Stones’s unspeakably great double album, “Exile on Main Street,” who knew that 39 years later, in a Los Angeles art gallery, I’d have a nice chat with the graphic artist who created the ...
Cuban National Ballet cruises L.A. in classic “Don Quixote” 2
Our Cuban brothers and sisters cruised into the Los Angeles Music Center last night driving their charmingly ramshackle “Don Quixote,” a vehicle purring on high-octane Russian ballet technique that’s been passed through generations — similar to the classic cars parading Havana’s island coastline. The ballet was choreographed in 1988 by Alicia Alonso, after Petipa’s original ...
