‘Tecnologia Filosofica,’ Italian contemp dancers at Theatre Raymond Kabbaz
Nov
20
2011
I’ll be bobbing around the Caribbean, on TCM Classic Cruise, watching great movies with TCM’s Robert Osborne and Ben Mankiewicz. But you may want to attend a cool dance performance in Los Angeles while I’m gone. It’s the U.S. premiere performance of one of Italy’s leading contemporary dance troupes, Tecnologia Filosofica. Described as an entertaining and ...
Michael Jackson visited Martha Graham studio 2
“And then he’d have to go back to whatever he’d go back to. And it just went wrong. Who knows what happened?” Michael Jackson lived the life he lived. He navigated a tangle of destiny and choice, as do we all. Jackson was born into a certain family, a certain fate, and he was a ...
Chakiris, Tamblyn, Moreno cement their memories @ Grauman’s 1
A touching trio of memories left behind at Grauman’s Chinese Theater on November 15, 2011, as three “West Side Story”‘ stars join the Hollywood ritual and deposit paws and hooves in cement. Long live the dancers! Like this? Read more: Enjoy arts·meme‘s “West Side Story” thread
Something’s coming … tonight at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, “West Side Story” 50th birthday party
1961 marquee In a great American pas de deux, George Chakiris partners Rita Moreno in “Dance at the Gym.” Co-choreographer Peter Gennero added sizzle to Robbins’s choreography in this number, so says dance-in-film historian Larry Billman. Jerome Robbins smiles. Thank you Lynn Becker and Doc Macro for the WSS images.
David Hallberg, Moscow movie star
When we last saw David Hallberg—the first American to join the prestigious ranks of Bolshoi Ballet principal dancers—he was clamoring through modern works by Nacho Duato and Mauro Bigonzetti as a guest artist in “Kings of the Dance” at Segerstrom Hall in Orange County. That was just a few weeks ago. This Sunday November 20, ...
Villella violated
Nov
14
2011
Since writing in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago about local hero (he got Disney Hall built) Nicholas Goldsborough’s appointment at Miami City Ballet in an executive function, we’ve been hearing screams through the grapevine that things are in a mess in Miami. A story in the NYT clarifies — while setting the ...
African-American photojournalists capture L.A.’s rich post-War arts world 1
These arts images are drawn from “Identity and Affirmation: Postwar African-American Photography,” an exhibition of 125 images produced by Los Angeles African-American photographers during the postwar years from 1945 to 1980. The marvelous show, now on at Cal State Northridge, also includes social and political photographs. It’s part of the Getty’s “Pacific Standard Time” survey ...
MJ dances 2
When Michael Jackson died in June 2009, I was attending a three-week symposium for dance critics run by the National Endowment for the Arts at Duke University — an honor. This so-called dance criticism “Institute,” staged annually at the American Dance Festival, was think-tank focused on dance as an art form — geared for specialists ...
A dancer’s shoes
Zaldy, the trendy costume designer for Michael Jackson’s aptly named “This is It” tour, speaks in the film’s DVD-extras about the custom loafers he created for the singer-dancer. The designer describes how he knocked off the cut and dimension of [hundreds of] loafers that [Jackson told Zaldy], “I can dance in.” Michael Jackson was ...
Genius. West Side Story.
Just in from seeing “West Side Story” projected on big screen — my first such viewing (big screen) since who knows when … or maybe ever. What a great movie. Robbins’s choreography is so stellar, so wicked, so spot-on and thrilling; it’s even scary — in “Cool.” The “America” number on the rooftop, beyond brilliant. ...