“Russian Los Angeles” dance exhibition opens in St. Petersburg
“Russian Los Angeles: Stravinsky, Innovation and Dance,” an exhibition co-curated by Lorin Johnson, an associate professor of dance at California State University, Long Beach and Mark Konecny, Associate Director of the Institute of Modern Russian Culture at the University of Southern California, has opened in St. Petersburg at the Russian State Museum of Theatre and ...
By 1916, ballet dancer Theodore Kosloff was a vaudeville veteran 1
Nov
23
2013
From the Mariinski to the Bolshoi to the Ballets Russes … and then, across the pond, to Onion the Trick Pony … Theodore Kosloff was a trouper in American vaudeville. HIs first steps on the vaudeville stage occurred in 1910. A tour on the premier “circuit” — the ‘Keith-Orpheum’ circa 1916 — brought him to ...
Made in Germany (Stuttgart Ballet @ Sadler’s Wells)
While The Taming of the Shrew, their John Cranko party piece, was allotted three of their five-night run, it was the Stuttgart Ballet’s “Made in Germany” program that put hardcore balletomane bums in seats. Thirteen offerings, old and new, split into three segments. At three hours running time, not for the faint of heart and, ...
George Chakiris, Sally Forrest perform “Night and Day” in 1956
Nov
20
2013
At Saturday’s “An Evening with George Chakiris,” at UCLA Film & Television Archive, we enjoyed footage of a vintage live television broadcast, “CBS ‘Ford Star Jubilee: You’re the Top, A Salute to Cole Porter'” which aired on October 6, 1956. Among other great entertainers on the 90-minute live broadcast (Louis Armstrong, Dolores Grey, Shirley Jones, ...
“An Evening with George Chakiris” passes beautifully @ UCLA Film & Television Archive
Prior to a screening of French director Jacques Demy’s auteur-masterpiece, “Les Demoiselles de Rochefort,” in which the dancer-actor-singer appears prominently, UCLA Film & Television Archive honored George Chakiris with clips from his many appearances on television variety shows and an interview that touched on both his singing and his dancing career. The full-evening event took ...
Shechter, Cherkaoui @ Sadler’s Wells
The big kahuna of London dance, the temple, is Islington’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre. A place of entertainment for 300 years, dance became Sadler’s priority in 1928 when Old Vic manager Lilian Bayliss convinced Ninette de Valois to present the performances of what would eventually become the Royal Ballet (the English National and Birmingham Ballets started ...
George Chakiris chats about career — in the Los Angeles Times 1
“Gracious Dance” Los Angeles Times, Nov 11, 2013 An excerpt from Susan King’s article here: “It was groundbreaking choreographer-director Jerome Robbins who gave Chakiris his first big break when he cast him as Riff, the leader of the Jets, in the London stage production of “West Side Story.” Years later, Robert Wise, who co-directed the ...
Susan Marshall’s fetishized femmes
“Stop,” created by choreographer Susan Marshall, is a music video featuring an original score by Pulitzer prize-winning composer David Lang, played by members of the electric guitar quartet Dither and Mantra Percussion. “Stop” is a virtual companion piece to Susan Marshall & Company‘s new dance performance Play/Pause, which the Center for the Art of Performance ...
Martha, my dear
Nov
5
2013
How thrilled and impressed are we that the spanking new Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, dead in in the center of Beverly Hills, will present as its inaugural performance modern dance? Very thrilled and impressed indeed. Why should this be so unusual? There are several reasons. Classical ballet has tended to trump modern ...
Nana Gollner memories
Nov
1
2013
Concerning Metropolitan Opera Ballet prima Nana Gollner (1919-1980), who was trained by Theodore Kosloff, Malcolm McCormick, co-author, with Nancy Reynolds, of “No Fixed Point: Dance in the 20th Century,” said, “Nana Gollner was important in her day. She was the first American ballerina to be accepted abroad, she was strong left-handed dancer, she converted ...