Herb & Lani’s Latin-infused jazz at “Vibrato” 1
Feb
15
2011
“It’s what Miles said about me, which is really touching, ‘You hear three notes and you know it’s Herb Alpert.’ Well, you hear one note and you know it’s Miles. He won!” So says the modest and artistic Herb Alpert, musician, painter, sculptor, and arts philanthropist, at the end of an interview on a CBS morning program ...
Tidbits from Robert Redford at the AARP Awards 2
It was interesting to see Robert Redford honored for “Life Achievement” at the AARP “Movies for Grownups Awards” Monday night. Redford is an ambiguous player in this town. A star among stars, one of the last of the old-school movie actors, he stepped into the breach, launching the Sundance Institute and its independent film festival. ...
To Ann Arbor for Merce Cunningham concert
Feb
11
2011
We’re very excited about our visit to University of Michigan Power Center to see Merce Cunningham Dance Company perform next Saturday night. The program includes the marvelous “Split Sides,” made in 2003 to a rock score by Sigur Rós and Radiohead. I wrote about “Side Splits” in La Opinión at the time. Read it here. ...
Alter kockers we love
Feb
9
2011
Life was sweet Monday night when I got to meet and interview two lovely actors at the AARP “Movies for Grownups” awards. Both gave marvelous quotes. Read it in the Los Angeles Times. Yiddish dictionary here.
The Lion Queen 2
Feb
7
2011
Calling all moms! You think you have it rough. Then try just one day as Ma Di Tau, lioness, a single mother raising three urchins in the open plains of Botswana. You’re moving neighborhoods, you’ve got the kids in tow, and, OMG, they’re all still nursing. There are vicious (male) lions advancing on you from ...
Sydney Skybetter: from living room to living art
Feb
7
2011
In a living room audition for “A Chorus Line,” the young dancer, Sydney Skybetter, brings enviable energy to his task. It’s not surprising that the twig grew to a tree, choreographing this lovely solo to Schubert lieder for dancer Bergen Wheeler. [Music: Schubert’s Schwanengesang, D.957 (Cycle): Ständchen “Leise Flehen Meine Lieder, Fritz Wunderlich tenor.] In ...
Music and dance contribute to early Disney animation
In this clip from a talk at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival last summer, the amazing Marge Champion, 91, chats with the Pillow’s Director of Preservation, Norton Owen, about her participation in Walt Disney’s Snow White (1937). The occasion was the publishing of Mindy Aloff’s super book, “Hippo in a Tutu: Dancing in Disney Animation.” Mindy, ...
Fun pre-Oscar events at the Academy
Feb
4
2011
Beginning on Tuesday, February 22, through Saturday, February 26, the eve of the Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present five public events celebrating the 83rd Academy Awards. Shorts! Hosted by Kenneth Branagh, actor, writer, director, producer and four-time Oscar nominee. Features screenings of the 2010 Oscar-nominated films in the Animated ...
Rare 1928 Ballets Russes film footage found
From Corriere della Serra, via arts•meme‘s good friend Stefano Tomassini, a dance historian at University CaFoscari in Venice: the only film to date of the Ballets Russes. The footage portrays Michel Fokine’s Chopin ballet “Les Sylphides,” and features principal dancer, Serge Lifar. It seems to have been filmed in 1928 at the Fête des Narcisses in ...
Valentine’s Day movie date
Feb
2
2011
There’s a good Valentine’s Day selection at the movies this year. For the unabashedly romantic, Bogie and Ilsa will always have Paris at Cinefamily on Fairfax Boulevard — the Champs-Elysees of Los Angeles. Further down Fairfax, at LACMA, “Klute,” a hard-nosed film about a harder-nosed call girl follows film critic Kenneth Turan’s in-person Jane Fonda interview. This should ...