‘Get up and vote!’ Engaged dancers urge pals to use their power
It’s high energy and upbeat; it’s scrupulously non-partisan, and it creates a positive model for civic involvement. It’s the brainchild and passion project of dance-community stalwart, the agent and co-founder of MSA Agency in Hollywood, Julie McDonald. Along with a partner, Pamela Cooper, and a technology maven, Emmy Frevele, “Dance for the Vote” just went ...
Storming the Sixties: From Teen Dance Shows to Shindig!
NBC Hullabaloo Dancers on The Motown State Fair Tour with Canadian singer Tony Roman, ca. 1965. Photograph by James J. Kriegsmann. Courtesy of Karen W. Hubbard. Ed. note: artsmeme is delighted to share with readers the third of three excerpts from author Julie Malnig’s Dancing Black, Dancing White: Rock ‘n’ Roll, Race, and Youth Culture ...
Dear Academy Museum, please stop trying to divide us
doesn’t get better: cab, fayard, harold Dear Academy Museum, The Nicholas Brothers were great dancers not ‘Black’ dancers For an institution tripping over itself in an effort to evince sensitivity toward every sector, segment, and demographic that ever walked Planet Earth for the past 3,000 years — a real mission impossible, guys — you keep ...
Real, fake, honest, or corrupt? UCLA Film & Television Archive’s clever ‘Quiz Show’ program
An exceptional double bill this Saturday night, June 1, at UCLA Film & Television Archive, where film programs are screened at the Billy Wilder Theater of the Hammer Museum. This one bears particular tongue in cheek, as part of the Archive’s “Small Screen/Big Screen” series. It’s a clever pairing of a feature film, QUIZ SHOW ...
Three ‘wows’ and ten years of arts leadership from Thor Steingraber 1
“Three wows” sold Thor Steingraber on The Soraya. Steingraber’s long interview process in the fall of 2013 and winter of 2014 to become top executive of Cal State Northridge’s newish theater culminated in a site visit. As he marks ten years as The Soraya’s executive and artistic director, he remembers this moment as his first ...
A closer look: “Worker and Machine” (1928) at The Huntington
Hugo Gellert, Worker and Machine, 1928, oil on board, 30 1/2 × 30 7/8 in. Collection of Sandra and Bram Dijkstra The anonymous working man in this painting, “Worker and Machine” (1928) by Hungarian-born artist Hugo Gellert, is one of nineteen striking canvases exhibited in “Art for the People,” a boutique collection of paintings, a ...
Glitches and snafus: arts-writing errata that drives us crazy
As the Internet has expanded opportunities for all kinds of people to be published (including riff-raff like artsmeme!) with bylines, so too has spread misinformation, glitches, and snafus, the kinds of mistakes that an editor used to safeguard from readers. I myself am in this situation; I self-publish without editorial oversight. I am always grateful ...
Blacklisted! America’s dalliance in pernicious censorship
In anticipation of the major show, Blacklist: The Hollywood Red Scare which opens May 4 at The Skirball Cultural Center for the summer, comes a screening event, with guests, at the Hollywood Heritage Barn on Highland Avenue. It’s an “Afternoon at the Barn” screening of a one-hour-long film, Legacy of the Hollywood Blacklist, directed by ...