Cinefamily mashes Rowlands, Cassavetes, Mingus
Closing evening of Cinefamily’s month-long Cassavetes retrospective features live appearances and performances — plus a screening of A Woman Under The Influence. The evening features: Film and video rarities of Cassavetes at work A panel discussion with Bo Harwood (Cassavetes film composer & sound engineer/editor), Richard Upper (art department on A Woman Under The Influence ...
Cynthia Gregory, Children’s Ballet Theatre, 1953 1
Mar
18
2011
The great Gregory, blessed from birth with a cygnet neck and skinny legs, as captured by a master photog, Bob Willoughby. Click photos for detail. photo: thank you bob willoughby estate Like this? Read more: Gregory returns to West Coast
Minneapolis gets Merce Cunningham Dance Company collection
The good news in the dance world is that the Merce Cunningham Dance Company collection of set pieces, costumes, painted drops created for relentlessly innovative choreographer by leading artists, designers and musicians has a loving home. Alas dance fans will have to traipse to Minneapolis to see the stuff, made in New York City though ...
Marvelous Marvin Hamlisch picks up Pasadena Pops baton 2
Mar
16
2011
“I love Pasadena,” proclaimed the new conductor of the Pasadena Pops, Marvin Hamlisch. The award-winning film and Broadway composer is perfectly suited for the family-oriented position because, for one thing, he’s no shrinking violet. With a portfolio studded with mega-hits for Broadway (“A Chorus Line”) and Hollywood movies (“The Way We Were,” “Sophie’s Choice,” “The ...
Hoppé’s impromptu Nijinsky photo session 1
This dapper fellow is E.O. Hoppé, Great Britain’s German-born society-and-arts photographer (1878-1972) whose current show at London’s National Portrait Gallery has spawned very positive reviews. [Click on E.O.’s photo for better view] And it all has a Los Angeles connection. arts·meme friend, Graham Howe, who divides his time between Sydney and Pasadena, is a distinguished photography ...
Choreographer Stephen Petronio, leg man
Mar
13
2011
As a choreographer Stephen Petronio is a leg man. His meticulously constructed movement-chains travel on high-kicking, fully swinging legs. Transporting the dancers across the stage, they then pause in off-kilter balances before sinking into deep solid lunges. We observed this leg action during the West Coast premiere of Petronio’s “I Drink the Air Before Me,” ...
Yuichiro Ando @ New Puppy Gallery
Mar
12
2011
All kinds of documentary and feature films have examined George Bush’s little war, but I’ve yet to see a fine artist’s response. Because … how many artists have had flip-flops on the ground in Iraq? Iraqi war veterans struggling to move on from their experience may include an L.A. artist, Yuichiro Ando, an Otis art-school ...
Happy 100th Birthday, Jean Harlow 1
Mar
11
2011
Film historian Robert S. Birchard contributes this story to arts·meme: If you asked the average Joe on the street he probably wouldn’t know the name. The better-than-average fellow with a yen for trivia might conjure that she had platinum blonde hair; that there was a scandal related to one of her husbands; and that she ...
Brazilian folkloric troupe to rock Wilshire Boulevard
Mar
10
2011
After the week I’ve had, I am dearly looking forward to Saturday night’s performance of Balé Folclórico da Bahia, Brazil’s only professional folk dance company. The 38-member ensemble, which features live music and singing (five percussionists and three singers) presents the U.S. premiere of Sacred Heritage, a work inspired by the polytheistic nature religion of ...
Cassavetes didn’t make his films for us, but we like them anyway 2
Saluting the ambitious retrospective of the films — and some of the television work — of John Cassavetes, the patron saint of American independent cinema. The events take place at Cinefamily, located in the old Silent Movie house on Fairfax Avenue, kicking off Thursday night. Cinefamily christens the series, a bit nebulously, with this blistering ...