Posts by Gillian Renault
arts•meme contributor Gillian Anne Renault lives in Los Angeles. Gillian has written about dance for the Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Herald Examiner and artsATL in Atlanta.
Tanowitz observed: critic’s notes on ‘Four Quartets’ at CAP UCLA
An artsy crowd showed up at Royce Hall Sunday afternoon to see Four Quartets, no doubt because of the rapturous reviews it got in London and New York and because of its heady combination of the arts: literature (TS Eliot’s poem of the title read with earthy finesse by Kathleen Chalfant); modernist painter Brice Marden’s ...
Justice & joy united by Contra-Tiempo 1
ed. note: this story was originally published on artsmeme Oct 21, 2018 Contra-Tiempo’s new work joyUS justUS is exuberant, activist dance-theater. Say the title out loud and you hear “joyous justice.” Dig deeper, and you discover it takes a stand on topics that are on the boil in America today: immigration, resistance, the power of ...
REVIEW: BODYTRAFFIC’s Wallis residency opens strongly
BODYTRAFFIC performs (d)elusive minds by Fernando Hernando Magadan (l-r) Guzmán Rosado, Tina Finkelman Berkett. Photo by Don Lee. Some dance performances give us gorgeous bodies, abstract movement and music we can hum: an escape from politics, madness and murder. Others use dancers for polemics and not much else; these may be worthy, but hard to watch. On Friday, ...
‘So L.A.’ in a good way: Jacob Jonas The Company reviewed
‘to the dollar,’ chor by jacob jonas, photography matthew brush It’s hard to avoid politics these days. We tweet about it, march about it, get outraged about it. It’s in your face in every medium. Including dance. Jacob Jonas The Company’s (JJTC) brilliantly danced mixed bill at The Wallis on Friday included two politically-charged works: ...
Ballet Hispanico’s all-female choreography-roster @ The Broad Stage
Linea Recta, chor. Annabelle Lopez Ochoa Ballet Hispánico. Don’t let the name fool you. It’s not a ballet company – although the dancers are beautifully trained in both ballet and contemporary dance – and it’s not folkloric either. According to the company’s artistic director and CEO Eduardo Vilaro: “We are the child of both in ...
Osipova in premiere as Isadora Duncan at Segerstrom
How will the California-born Isadora Duncan be remembered 50 years from now? As the woman whose barefoot, Greek-vase inspired abandon birthed the modern dance movement? Or for her shocking, free-love lifestyle in Europe and Russia and early tragic death – decapitated by scarf while riding in a Bugatti sports car? To the uninitiated, and by ...
Review: ABT’s Misty·fying ‘La Bayadere’ disappoints 3
Let’s start at the end: During curtain calls at American Ballet Theatre’s “La Bayadère” Friday night at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, ballerina Isabella Boylston gave her bouquet to her partner Jeffrey Cirio with a deferential flourish. Then, in a strange, gender-bending moment, she and third lead Misty Copeland curtsied, and curtsied some more to Cirio, ...
From South Africa, Dada Masilo’s re-envisioned ‘Giselle’ @ The Wallis
She’s messed with Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, and Carmen. Now comes Giselle. ‘Messed with’ is perhaps a strong term, but South Africa’s Dada Masilo is among a small group of choreographers – notably Matthew Bourne, Akram Khan, Boris Eifman and Mats Ek – with the guts to turn a hallowed narrative ballet into something ...
Dylan Gutierrez brings his Romeo home to L.A. with The Joffrey Ballet
The Joffrey Ballet’s Dylan Gutierrez is an LA kid. Before he hit ten, he was on stage with Placido Domingo in LA Opera’s “Falstaff” and “Sampson and Delilah” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. He was a student at the Los Angeles Ballet Academy in Encino – run by his former-ballerina mother – and was once ...
Danny Ezralow opens hearts, minds through dance around the world
Choreographer Daniel Ezralow is a global citizen. The Los Angeles native speaks fluent Italian, and a smattering of Russian and Japanese, having directed and choreographed projects in all three countries — the massive 2015 Sochi Olympics Opening Ceremony and Japanese Men’s Rhythmic Gymnastics among them. He’s currently a judge on a new Italian TV talent ...