Go postal gorgeously – Oscar de la Renta stamps
Yay! The Federal government finally did something! And they did something good. Last February the U.S. Postal Service issued Forever stamps honoring Oscar de la Renta, a native of the Dominican Republic and one of the world’s leading fashion designers. The Oscar de la Renta stamp pane includes 11 images — an evocative black-and-white portrait ...
LACMA ‘Found in Translation’ documents Mexi-Cali design dialogue 1
From Sacramento to San Diego, California’s Mexican and Spanish underpinnings are as historic as they are pervasive. We often take those connections for granted, but LACMA’s exhibition “Found in Translation: Design in California and Mexico, 1915-1985” offers a fascinating view of the influence and confluence between the two cultures in the 20th Century. It’s part ...
Ticket to ride: ‘L.A. Documentaries at Union Station’
A wonderful idea: a film screening series in the noble and ghostly ticketing hall at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. Where the teaming masses purchased train tickets, over decades, to all destinations north, south, and east. Lately the historic hall has emerged as a creative space. There, in 2013, photographer Dana Ross captured Yuval ...
Ethel Martin water-dances in Billy Rose’s ‘Aquacade’ 1
From an interview with Jack Cole dancers George and Ethel Martin available on sound recording at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Ethel Martin shares memories of working in impresario Billy Rose‘s famed Aquacade revue at the 1939 World’s Fair. Martin found a way to double her income by performing both as ...
Rauschenberg dance contributions recognized in live MoMA performance
Who’s going to New York? Oh, you already live there? Then get thee to MoMA on Wednesday, September 6, for a curated performance of mid-century dance masterworks at the vaunted MoMA Sculpture Garden twice that day. The dance program accompanies Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends, the exhibit now on at the Museum through September 17. Rauschenberg ...
Norman Bel Geddes interior-design sketch for Palais Royal
Norman Bel Geddes (American, 1893-1958) Geddes’s design of a dancing couple for the Palais Royal Cabaret Theatre Ca. 1922 Watercolor on paper Courtesy Norman Bel Geddes online database, Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin Jack Cole danced at the Palais Royal in December 1933. It was Cole’s first nightclub gig. The building, which ...
Savion Glover vs. Ford Amphitheatre soundwall
Jul
13
2017
A sound-worthy evening awaits us Saturday as the beloved John Anson Ford Amphitheatre is poised and ready for its festive inaugural season-opening night, a re-opening after a major retrofit. A noisy tumult normally accompanies an event at the Ford, which is set in a natural hollow of the Cahuenga Pass, but faces off with a ...
Bravura triple opening at Hauser & Wirth July 1
In a theatrical, nearly madcap, gesture, international art gallery Hauser & Wirth is throwing a big art party to simultaneously launch three shows: Takesada Matsutani, Paul McCarthy: WS Spinoffs, Wood Statues, Brown Rothkos and Monika Sosnowska. The open-to-the-public event will take place on the holiday weekend, July 1, on the campus of the private gallery’s ...
Weird scenes inside the goldmine: L.A.’s 1967 rock venues 1
Jun
21
2017
by kirk silsbee
editor’s note: Harvey Kubernik’s new coffeetable tome, 1967: A Complete Rock Music History of the Summer of Love (Sterling), is a both a scholarly examination and a sensuous immersion into the pivotal year in 1960s youth culture through a mosaic of voices. Kirk Silsbee’s sidebars from his essay in the book, excerpted and condensed here, ...
Duckler dancers to scale tall ships of Port of Los Angeles
Full immersion is the typical call to action of a Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre site-specific happening. That’s what attracts her adventure-seeking audience. But next Saturday night, when we attend Beyond the Waterfront, Duckler’s latest site-specific work, we hope it does not require a plunge into the deep dark sea at the Port of Los Angeles ...