Ballet is dead. Long live ballet. 1
In the October 13, 2010 issue of The New Republic, dance critic Jennifer Homans queries, “Is Ballet Over?” In her essay, Homans notes: “Ballet has always and above all contained the idea of human transformation, the conviction that human beings could remake themselves in another, more perfect or divine image. It is this mixture of ...
Jackie K’s symphony seat before she was Jackie O
Oct
24
2010
This snapshot was taken by my colleague Bret at Avery Fisher Hall, where over two evenings, we watched the New York Philharmonic’s young new conductor Alan Gilbert do his thing. Mrs. K/O, in her time, sat in the seat in front of us. The first concert was a mixed bill of Debussy, Sibelius Violin Concerto ...
Choreographer Kyle Abraham, Pittsburgh homeboy, BESSIE awardee
Oct
24
2010
Gifted dance artist Kyle Abraham, whose “The Radio Show” just won a Bessie Award, and who I immensely enjoyed meeting at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in August, is my homeboy from Pittsburgh. Never mind that I’m a good twenty years older than Kyle — a full generation. He and I share a few Pittsbuggian, er ...
Breaking news from Peter Blogdanovich ….
Oct
23
2010
This just in from one of our smartest film maker/writer/critics: This is just to let you know that I now have a blog on older films. It’s called Blogdanovich, of course, and it is under the umbrella of indieWire, so if you want to read the entries you can go to indieWire—Blogdanovich and it’ll come ...
Ballet’s Angel Corella looks ahead … and back
Oct
22
2010
“Dance is a way of connecting with people. When you play classical roles, you use your technique to express something, to make the audience part of what you’re doing,” says veteran ballet star Angel Corella, who as a principal dancer with American Ballet Theater for 15 years has played serious dudes with names like Siegfried, ...
Back to LA after whirlwind classical music tour of NYC 2
Oct
21
2010
Your humble correspondent is chained once again to her desk in Los Feliz, California, following a 10-day tour of paradise — otherwise known as New York City in scintillating October weather, with the art season in full blast. As a lucky recipient of a fellowship to the NEA’s Classical Music & Opera Institute, I joined a gung-ho group ...
Bob Hope roasts C.B DeMille in 1953
Oct
20
2010
While performing research in the DeMille archive at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, I came across this transcript of gags that Bob Hope zinged at Cecil B. DeMille. The occasion was the “Great American” dinner. The date, November 30, 1953. Cecil’s been in this business a long time I don’t know exactly when he ...
Bessie Awards honors west coast choreographers 1
Oct
18
2010
In a joyous ceremony that ended only one hour ago at Symphony Space on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, two West Coast choreographers were among those honored with Bessie dance awards. The awards returned with a vengeance following a one-year hiatus. Faye Driscoll of Los Angeles was recognized for her dance-theater piece “837 Venice Boulevard.” Accepting ...
Ornette Coleman, at 80, can still change the way you listen . . . or even scare you 2
Oct
17
2010
Jazz enthusiast Adam Hyman contributes this appreciation of Ornette Coleman to arts·meme: Ornette Coleman, who returns to UCLA Live on November 3, is one of jazz’s few remaining legends to walk among us. He’s usually credited with creating “free jazz.” In fact, a variety of free-jazz experimentations preceded him. What Coleman created, as part of his truly ...
Fear & loathing at the Met: Rene Pape as Boris Gudonov 1
Read this story on The Huffington Post. Opera goers didn’t so much descend the Metropolitan Opera House’s red staircase late Friday night as fled the house after a challenging four-hour encounter with “Boris Gudonov,” Modest Mussorgsky’s sprawling recitative-driven opera from 1869. Valery Gergiev, the Mariinsky Theater conductor whose advocacy for “Boris” may have spurred the ...