Lilacs to beget roses — and dance — at New York Botanical Garden
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 ...
We love Hollywood ballet
‘Normal’ ballet is so boring: Petipa, Balanchine, Tudor, Robbins, Ratmansky. Those guys never put girls in pointe shoes on pianos. We prefer fancy, Hollywood-style ballet, like this photo from KING OF JAZZ (1930) made at Universal Pictures and featuring dancing by Russell Markert dancers (Markert, who, not surprisingly, founded the Rockettes, is listed as the ...
Rudy Perez, no cheap imitation
May
2
2016
A performance upcoming features Colburn Academy dance students in the restaging of a vintage work by dancer/choreographer Rudy Perez, Cheap Imitation. The choreography, dating from 1983, has been reconstructed by Tamsin Carlson. Thereafter, the Colburn Dance Council will award Mr. Perez in recognition of his influence on modern dance in Los Angeles. Karen Goodman will ...
Remembering Mia Slavenska
This simply spectacular photo memorializes a tremendous dancer of the twentieth century, the great Croatia-born prima ballerina Mia Slavenska. The rock solid legs, the startling physical intensity, the blazing eyes, all Slavenska. Following her career with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Slavenska’s long and winding road led, in the 1970s, to teaching classical ballet ...
Hubbard Street Dance Chicago brings rare Forsythe creation to the Barclay
Apr
23
2016
There’s history here. Hubbard Street Dance Chicago was first presented by the Irvine Barclay Theater at UC Irvine nearly 25 years ago under the auspices of its founding director, Lou Conte. The company, since 2009 under the leadership of artistic director Glenn Edgerton, has moved from its jazz-dance roots to being one of the nation’s ...
Fred of our dreams
From our friends at Julien’s Auctions, a pair of black-and-white silver gelatin prints of Fred Astaire taken by Andre de Dienes circa 1938. Both hand printed by de Dienes on double-weight paper and stamped by the photographer on verso. Sold at auction March 28, 2016.
Doubling up to double down: Lula Washington & Pony Box @ Nate Holden 2
Mar
29
2016
“We all live together on this one planet and we all need to get along.” So states choreographer Lula Washington in her inimitable straight-ahead fashion that has made her not just a beloved figure, but a bulwark, of the Los Angeles dance community. She’s referring to her work “Global Village,” pictured above, which will be ...
Pre-tax pleasure: ‘Starring George Chakiris’ April 14
We’re fans and we’re friends. That’s why we are so pleased that Turner Classic Movies is showcasing the creative output of actor/dancer/singer George Chakiris, whose triple-threat talent and smoldering good looks were made for the movies. Though a huge teen heartthrob in the sixties, Chakiris was often cast as a dark figure, famously in WEST ...
Like butter … dancer Clarice Young 3
A memorable performance tonight at the Broad Stage by Evidence: A Dance Company, the Brooklyn-based troupe overseen by uber talented choreographer Ronald K. Brown, whose dense dance vision overlays post-modern elements onto a rich African-based vocabulary, often working with jazz scores. Outstanding among the strong individuals to possess the stage was the radiant and beatific ...
REVIEW: ‘Remembering Water’ from String Theory
Everything about “Remembering Water,” a fully integrated dance-and-rock-music pageant presented by Los Angeles-based String Theory, and repeated next weekend at Santa Monica’s charming Miles Playhouse, is pure joy. Spooling through 13 staged songs for a nicely compact 65 minutes, the highly versatile and handsome troupe of eleven (seven musicians, four dancers) radiate a spontaneous pleasure ...