Jacaranda’s lovely musical edge
Aug
3
2011
It was one of those heaven-sent Sunday afternoons in Los Angeles — the ambient temperature so idyllic that you floated freely without a modicum of pushback from Mother Nature. And in this effortless environment, we very much enjoyed an afternoon of plein air classical music, courtesy of Jacaranda, Music at the Edge. In a garden ...
Gertrude Stein’s ROI on her Matisse
Aug
2
2011
Featured in San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde, Henri Matisse’s great game-changing canvas, Woman in the Hat. SFMOMA owns the painting. The work has amazing history. After viewing the vibrant paintings at the 1905 Salon d’Automne, Louis Vauxcelles, an important critic dubbed Matisse and his peers ...
Colonoscopy 3
Everyone’s jumping on the high-speed train, oh wait, we don’t have one … everyone’s powering north in their cars on the killer Golden State Freeway. Destination, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde. The much-admired Gertrude Stein show adds to the ever-growing dump of evidence that ...
Still the swingingest thing: West Side Story’s George Chakiris
A lot of ladies — and quite a few gents including American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Marcelo Gomes and the just-retired Jose Manuel Carreno — gawked as West Side Story star George Chakiris entered the Founder’s Room of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Los Angeles Music Center. It was the opening night reception following ...
She’s a rainbow, strums Gary Lucas at the Grammy Museum
Jul
26
2011
The instant Gary Lucas put his hand to his acoustic guitar and blasted into “She’s a Rainbow,” I took off into the stratosphere. A one-way ticket to pleasure-ville. I had forgotten this great Rolling Stones anthem — a love paean by Jagger/Richards dedicated to their flower-child cohorts. She comes in colours. The globe-trotting musician played ...
“Je ne suis pas contente de tout,” says Claude Bessy. 1
The film I loved most of the four I saw at the Dance Camera West festival in June was Fabrice Herrault’s beautifully constructed documentary about his former ballet instructor, Claude Bessy, Les lignes d’une Vie (Traces of a Life). Herrault, a dance professor at the Juilliard School and a respected private coach, has made one ...
Dance photog Christopher Duggan shoots Lar Lubovitch Dance Company 1
New York-based dance photographer Christopher Duggan snapped these amazing rehearsal photos of Lar Lubovitch Dance Company performing this weekend at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. Lar Luvovitch Dance Company first performed at the Pillow in 1971, and since then five more times, including the troupe’s fortieth anniversary celebration in the Ted Shawn Theater. photo credit: Christopher ...
Debbie Reynolds, costume connoisseur
Photographer/writer Iris Schneider contributes this to arts·meme: “Isn’t there some millionaire out there who can save all this?” The question hung in the air as hundreds of ordinary people, film buffs with their kids, designers and lookie-loos lined up to ogle the astounding array of costumes and props collected over the years by Debbie Reynolds ...
LACMA’s last picture show: Ozu’s “Late Autumn” on July 30 2
Jul
21
2011
There are still several wonderful films between now and then, but for your calendar’s purposes, one date stands out. The final screening of LACMA’s weekend classic film program, begun 41 years ago and overseen by Ian Birnie for the last 15, features Yasujiro Ozu’s “Late Autumn” (1962). That’s on Saturday, July 30, 2011. In his ...
blue13’s “Into the Bollywoods” @ the Ford Amphitheatre this weekend
Jul
20
2011
We chatted recently with Anchinta S. McDaniel, the vivacious artistic director of blue13 dance company. The audience-pleasing Bollywood dance troupe presents the choreographer’s newest creation at the Ford Amphitheatre this weekend. Sure to be eye-popping, noisy, and fun, McDaniel’s Into The Bollywoods (with apologies to Sondheim, we’re certain) has its premiere on Friday night. It’s ...