Sane dance fans converge on Segerstrom for pleasing ‘Lines Ballet’ performance
It was the United States of Segerstrom last night when the nation’s Capital of COVID-Containment relocated (for just one night, Dr. Fauci) to Costa Mesa, California. There, the much-vaunted performing arts center at least somewhat righted the pandemic cataclysm by launching its season with a knockout dance performance. An upbeat cluster of up to 1,500 ...
Ornithology, at Piano Spheres special season-opener
Red-flanked Bluetail ed. note: We are pleased to re-enter life as we knew it, and feature, in this special post, writing by Kirk Silsbee and photography by Mark Levine As performing-arts presenters take tentative steps toward resuming full programming, the prudent path would mandate familiar fare to reconnect with cautious audiences. Piano Spheres is having ...
Jazz trombone man, Richard Nash, in conversation 1
Sep
6
2021
One of the most sought-after trombone players in Hollywood, Dick Nash played with Henry Mancini, Billy May, Lalo Schifrin, Pete Rugolo, Quincy Jones, and the list goes on. Most associated with swing and big band music, he is admired by the best trombone players all over the world. Richard Taylor Nash is celebrating his 93rd year. ...
A little Fosse-Verdon will do ‘ya!
Aug
30
2021
In the six or so years she danced for Jack Cole, Gwen Verdon was ‘artiste.’ But with Fosse, it was hot dogs, carnie, Vaudeville, Americana, rubber-legs, cigars, straw and bowler hats. And what they were selling, the public was buying. “Bob and I grew up at the same time, where everybody learned to do everything. ...
‘Hygiene theater,’ a good show at Segerstrom, others 1
Joan Crawford, Queen of Cleanliness There are copious stories in the New York Times and The Atlanta Monthly calling for the end to “hygiene theater,” that is the fake, fruitless, labor intensive, time-and-money consuming practice of keeping our shared public spaces scrupulously clean. Even the Centers for Disease Control is emphasizing that COVID-19 is spread ...
Broadbent & Mancio, a musical partnership by intuition & osmosis 2
One of the most sublime vocal albums of this, or any recent, year was released a few months ago. London-based singer and lyricist Georgia Mancio and pianist Alan Broadbent committed duets of nine of their own songs onto Quiet Is The Star (Roomspin). The collaboration is one of the all-too-rare instances where voice, text, piano ...
You’re invited: Blue13’s Bollywood ‘shaadi’ 2
It’s immersive, it’s outdoors, and baby, it’s Bollywood-style. When did you get a better wedding invitation than that? Blue13 Dance Company‘s ‘Shaadi‘ (Hindi for ‘wedding) will be a happening thing at Heritage Square Museum, a cluster of preserved Victorian homes in the Montecito Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. If Blue13’s ebullient artistic director and choreographer ...
Act out your photographic fantasies: LACMA’s ‘Acting Out’ cabinet-card show
Aug
23
2021
This is fabulous. I love to ‘act out.’ (Just ask my family.) Now there is an entire exhibition dedicated to that proposition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, aka LACMA. It illustrates one of the few ways people in the late 19th Century could indulge their little dramatic fantasies — by visiting the ...
Ticket to happiness: ‘Le Bonheur’ turns 55 at Laemmle Theatres
Aug
16
2021
cute nuclear family – what could go wrong? It’s a personal favorite and a beautiful film, if only for its score. But it is also a visual feast. Shot in the suburbs of Paris, Agnes Varda’s Le Bonheur opens with an idyllic scene of a perfect little French “famille” tripping the light fantastic of a ...
Live performance lives! at Vail Dance Festival
Melissa Toogood with other Festival Artists in Michelle Dorrance’s “New to the Session” at the Vail Dance Festival. Photo by Christopher Duggan As New York City’s dance venues gear up to re-open next month, in early August a heady mix of the city’s finest dancers brought the thrill of live dance to the Vail Dance Festival. ...