BYOB: Diavolo brings bowl to the Bowl
The Hollywood Bowl’s historic band shell, the object of community affection as well as architectural dispute over the years, gets an ultimate homage when Diavolo Dance Theater installs its own version, a huge fiberglass replication, on the huge stage. It’s part of the September 5 world premiere of “Fluid Infinities,” performed by the architectural movement ...
Oscar was a dancer 2
This amusing photo of Oscar-winning dancer George Chakiris (Best Actor in a Supporting Role, “West Side Story,” 1962) and dance critic Debra Levine taken by Dana Ross last Saturday night at “Oscars Outdoors” sparked an email from Hollywood dance expert Larry Billman. Writes Larry, “The “original Oscar” was a dancer named Emilio Ferandez who modeled ...
At “Oscars Outdoors,” gentlemen still prefer blondes 1
It was a super-special 60th anniversary screening, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science’s “Oscars Outdoors” summer series, of 20th Century-Fox’s comic classic from 1953, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” the movie that blasted off the career of Marilyn Monroe. And the flick’s funnier than ever. Lead actresses Monroe and Jane Russell zing out hilarious ...
George Chakiris to introduce GENTLEMEN at Academy; Debra Levine to discuss Jack Cole
Sixty years after appearing as a chorus dancer behind Marilyn Monroe in “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” George Chakiris will host the Academy’s “Oscars Outdoors” screening of GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES Saturday night, August 3, 2013. In the photo at right we see George, a young man with fake grey highlights spraypainted in his hair. ...
El Cid endures … powered by fifty years of flamenco
Jul
30
2013
It was heady, returning to Los Angeles after two weeks out of town, to drive directly from LAX and drop down — and I mean literally drop down a double staircase into a ravine off Sunset Boulevard and land at El Cid, the venerable Spanish-themed restaurant and live music venue, located in Los Angeles’ Silver ...
That pink dress! Costuming Marilyn Monroe for “Diamonds”
At right, Travilla‘s design for Marilyn’s iconic pink dress in “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” from GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (1953) whose 60th anniversary we are honoring with a screening at the Academy’s “Oscars Outdoors” series Saturday August 3. The classy pink dress, lined with felt, was a replacement design for an original, much less ...
Recommended: “Never Stand Still” on Great Performances Friday night
An award-winning documentary on the influence and importance of Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival will broadcast on PBS Friday night. Legendary dancers and choreographers appear alongside new innovators to reveal the passion, discipline, and daring of the world of dance in Never Stand Still, directed by Ron Honsa. This documentary, filmed at the Pillow and narrated by Bill ...
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet takes on Cayetano Soto 2
You’re seated amidst a smallish audience in a theater in the middle of the country. You’re not in New York, you’re not in London. But you’re watching an advancement the art of classical ballet. It’s the premiere, this past weekend in Aspen, Colorado, of a new work by Cayetano Soto for Aspen Santa Fe Ballet ...
The temerity of Tamara, at Golden Legend Gallery 1
We recently heard from arts·meme friend, Gordon Hollis, proprietor of Golden Legend Gallery in Beverly Hills who alerted us to a unique print in a rare book he is handling. Svetlov, Valerien. Thamar Karsavina. London: Beaumont, 1922. First edition. No. 16 of 120 copies, specially signed by Karsavina, with hand-tinted illustrations, and specially bound in ...
Gomes transcends in Balanchine’s “Apollo” for ABT
Jul
12
2013
It was not just “awesome,” but indeed a privilege to watch Brazilian-born Marcelo Gomes, a great personal favorite, stretch his lovely long limbs as the Greek god, Apollo, in George Balanchine’s plotless ballet dating from 1928. In the dance the young man encounters and frolics with three muses, Calliope, the muse of poetry, Polyhymnia, the ...