Looks beautiful: Christian Petzold’s ‘Undine’ at German Currents Film Festival
One of Germany’s most celebrated film auteurs, Christian Petzold, brings a Los Angeles premiere to the German Currents Film Festival which kicks off today. Petzold’s UNDINE is a retelling, updated, of the myth of a water-nymph who marries a mortal. The story is set in modern-day Berlin. Told through Petzold’s precise visual style, the film ...
Vera-Ellen’s teensy steak dinner recalled by dance coach
chubby cheeks Turning the conversation to Vera-Ellen, I asked Joan Bayley who worked with the Hollywood dancer on White Christmas, if she was a nice girl. “Yes, she was,” replied Joan. “She was not an exciting personality, but she was friendly and sweet.” I expressed my opinion that Vera-Ellen’s dancing is not my favorite, as ...
Election Day 2020: ‘De-polarize for democracy,’ says dancer Dana Caspersen
It seems pretty obvious. We need to tamp down the political polarization in this country. But how do we do that? “They” won’t listen. Let’s put our bodies into it. Assuring us that “We Are Not Doomed,” conflict specialist Dana Caspersen, also a former dancer, has created a special “score,” or physical/mindful exercise, in honor ...
German ballet & film worlds connect in age of COVID
Grand Pas de Deux from LE CORSAIRE: Iana Salenko, Daniil Simkin As we have said umpteen times — to the point of “We get it!” — doing the arts on line is not our first choice. We love going out, we miss it so much. Everyone does. But, wow, some creative things have been pouring ...
Errol Flynn could dance, insists Julie Newmar
Julie on set in gold head-to-toe makeup applied by makeup man Antole Robbins, Flynn observing at rear c. 1952 Beyond his many physical gifts that made him the most derring-do of screen actors to famously do his own stuntwork, the long-legged Aussie-born movie star, Erroll Flynn (1909-1959) could also dance. Who knew? It was a ...
Ballet’s finest execs discuss challenges to female leadership in art form
Oct
15
2020
The moderator convened this on-line discussion during “a pivotal moment in our history and so much challenge for ballet.” That’s according to Kathryn Roszak, Artistic Director of Danse Lumière and a former artist with San Francisco Opera and San Francisco Ballet, in leading a pithy discussion that illuminates a trend we have lived through in ...
Book review: Post-modern vaudeville … from The Grand Union
dilley, arnold, rainer, grand union Ed. note: Guest author Elizabeth Zimmer contributes this review of Wendy Perron‘s new book, The Grand Union: Accidental Anarchists of Downtown Dance, 1970-1976. If you miss dance in our time of pandemic-related deprivation, get this book. Wendy Perron, a near-contemporary and sometime colleague of members of the Grand Union, was ...
Breathe in, breathe out: Westside Ballet’s ‘Grace & Grit’ drive-in movie event
joy womack, for westside ballet Attention, all dance-deprived! A fun event, with a poignant underpinning, will be a pop-up drive-in movie evening of filmed dance offerings hosted by Westside Ballet in tandem with the Public Policy Institute of Santa Monica College. I like how it puts dance — and the determination to present dance — ...
A Martha Graham x-ray of Trump’s COVID medical team
“The body never lies.” This aphorism is taught to every student of Dance History 101. It comes from Martha Graham, who received it from her father, Dr. George Graham, a neurological physician. “Martha, you must never lie to me, because movement never lies, and when I see your body I’ll know you are lying.” Dr. ...
Still stimulating: ‘The Grand Union’ in 50th anniversary conversation
Sep
28
2020
A special on-line convocation of a dance-talk series hosted by Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Place in New York’s East Village, Conversation Without Walls, will take place November 21. Participants include weighty women of the arts, the dancer and Danspace co-founder, Barbara Dilley, and artist, Yvonne Rainer, and writer, Wendy Perron. To mark the 50th ...