George Chakiris remembers West Side Story in advance of 50th anniversary screening @ Hollywood Bowl

Dance · Film
Prior to next week’s “West Side Story” night at the Hollywood Bowl — a screening of the ten-Oscar-winning, Bernstein-Robbins-Sondheim-Laurent film celebrating its 50th year anniversary — it’s a great pleasure to post L.A. renaissance guy Tom Gregory‘s lovely interview with Bernardo, er… the wonderful George Chakiris. At the Bowl, the Los Angeles Philharmonic will play ...

Cuban National Ballet cruises L.A. in classic “Don Quixote” 2

Dance · Reviews
Our Cuban brothers and sisters cruised into the Los Angeles Music Center last night driving their charmingly ramshackle “Don Quixote,” a vehicle purring on high-octane Russian ballet technique that’s been passed through generations — similar to the classic cars parading Havana’s island coastline. The ballet was choreographed in 1988 by Alicia Alonso, after Petipa’s original ...

René Blum and his Ballets Russes get another go-round in new book 1

Dance
Blum’s female universe, bountiful & beautiful, en route to New York, 1938 (photo courtesy of the author, click for detail) “In October 1938, the company sailed to the United States with the new Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo under the artistic direction of [Léonide] Massine and [René] Blum, who was billed as founder … for a ...

Hong Kong’s “South China Morning Post” tracks Lula Washington’s bilateral dance happening

Dance · Reviews

Lula tour makes HuffPo headline!

Dance

Washingtonians wrap up China tour in Hangzhou 1

Dance · Music
Tonight in Hangzhou, the historic resort city on the West Lake, now a bastion of high-tech industry: the final performance of the three-week tour of Central China by Lula Washington Dance Theatre. Mid-way through the itinerary, in the dusty back stairwell of a Henan province (Xinyang) theater, Keith Lommel, cultural attache at the U.S. Embassy ...

Lula Washington kicks it in Xinyang City with Rennie Harris’s fabulous REIGN

Dance
Hip-hop and house dance hit Henan Province hard last week. Lula Washington Dance Theatre kills in this blistering piece created for them by choreographer Rennie Harris. If you live in China where the government blocks youtube.com, view it here. video courtesy u.s. embassy in beijing, keith lommel, videographer, translator, china hand, sound mixer

Jiaxing party animals. Yes, *that* Party.

Dance · Ideas & Opinion
Arriving in Jiaxing, we remember our Chinese Communist Party (CCP) history. The party was founded under the guiding eye of Comintern agent, Grigori Voitinsky, in Shanghai’s French concession. It was July, 1921 — China’s summer of love. The first party congress had 53 attendees. Immediately feeling the heat from the Kuomintang authorities, the group transferred ...

Letter from Wuhan 1

Dance
Greetings from Wuhan, one of China’s “four furnaces.” It’s a hot one today, blazingly sticky and humid; for every particle of air, an equivalent particle of dirt. The dancers already had class and rehearsal and are hanging out, resting, before tonight’s show. Wuhan is a big old-industry town in the heartland of China, a bastion ...

Micah Moch flies in Rennie Harris’s “Reign” in Luohe, P.R.C.

Dance
Micah in the middle. Photo courtesy Keith Lommel, U.S. Embassy in Beijing