Let’s go to the drive-in.

Architecture & Design · Film · Visual arts
Projection for Two Stations a looping video will transform the parking lot of Bergamot Station Arts Center into a nightly pop-up drive-in movie. The clever creator of this best possible use of a Santa Monica evening is artist Alia Malley (b.1973, California). Malley received her BA in Critical Studies from USC School of Cinematic Arts ...

At Central Opera House, Cole choreographed ‘Bonanza Bound’

Architecture & Design · Dance
The former Central Opera House at 205 East 67th Street in New York City, pictured above. Here Jack Cole labored to create dance numbers for a notorious Broadway bomb, Bonanza Bound (1947). The turkey, however, had top talent behind it. A very rare musical flop by  Comden and Green. After their astonishing rise from cabaret ...

Charles Lummis, Los Angeles city founder, sprung to life in dance & documentary

Architecture & Design · Dance · Film
Heidi Duckler Dance Theatre will bring its site-specific brand of immersive performance, this weekend, to the historic Southwest Museum building. The performance, “143 Days,” is part of a commission by the Autry Museum of the American West and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Dance company will present a modern retelling of the pioneering American ...

Ford Amphitheatre’s new summer season, a cause to rejoice

Architecture & Design
Only in Los Angeles, on the grapevine of the Hollywood Freeway as it cuts a swathe from city to Valley, would a “summer season” extend through October 15. It happens, outdoors, at L.A.’s annual multicultural arts festival — the beloved and historic John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, now on the cusp of reopening after a two-year ...

Review: Antiquity updated in SOLUNA Fest’s ‘Rules of the Game’

Architecture & Design · Dance · Fashion · Film · Music · Reviews · Visual arts
Vulnerable humans cower in the debris of a humongous classical bust crashed to earth. An unnatural occurrence … like an airplane felled. Symbols of ancient civilization  — either Greek, Roman, or a modern approximation of both — tumble down, explode into shards. Not to worry; it’s all fake. It’s video art. This stunning and impactful ...

In Dallas, for SOLUNA Festival, coming apart at the seams

Architecture & Design · Dance · Music
In  a world that seems to be fraying if not coming apart at the seams, the ultimate deconstruction, that of the human body — a startling central image at last night’s premiere of “Rules of the Game,” a collaboration by visual artist Daniel Arsham, choreographer Jonah Bokaer, set to an original score by Pharrell Williams. ...

Lilacs to beget roses — and dance — at New York Botanical Garden

Architecture & Design · Dance
Tony and Emmy award-winning choreographer George Faison poses in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden last weekend with Naomi Goldberg Haas, artistic director of Dances for a Variable Population. The duo is collaborating on The Phoenix Project, a citywide event that will feature a performance by legendary guest artists staged ...

Wake-up call for “Sleeper” modernist auditorium

Architecture & Design · Film
In the screenshot above, red-headed comic Woody Allen saunters alongside a daring curvelinear-roof’ed structure in SLEEPER (1973). A decade prior, the great Los Angeles architectural photographer Julius Shulman (1910-2009) captured the eggy update on a civic auditorium (below). The building’s bold shape fit aptly with Southern California’s persistent modernist trend when it opened in 1964. ...

Barrie Chase meets Fred Astaire once again

Architecture & Design · Dance · Visual arts
Hollywood dancer/actress Barrie Chase, in New York for appearances at “All That Jack (Cole),” the historic film-retrospective now on offer at The Museum of Modern Art, burst into a spontaneous expression of physical joy at the sight of the Fred Astaire caricature in Ed Sorel’s mural at The Monkey Bar on East 54th Street. Barrie, ...

Architects discuss the art (and politics) of performing arts centers

Architecture & Design · Ideas & Opinion · Music · Theater
Performing arts centers define our cities and serve as architectural landmarks. These landmarks can rapidly transform the cultural and economic fabric of a city, bringing renewed prosperity as well as design inspiration. What is the essence of an iconic performing arts center? Enjoy a lively discussion combined with a memorable concert, and light refreshments. Moderator Thomas Small, ...