Look at your neighbor, urges artist Alexey Steele in Carson exhibit
We just spoke to our good friend, Alexey Steele, the Russian born-and-trained neo-realist painter and the impresario of the hugely popular “Classical Underground,” music series which we attend and enjoy. Alexey has a new project opening this week in the city of Carson, California, the multicultural hotspot in Los Angeles where Alexey-and-family reside in a ...
Dark days. Can the arts address what ails our nation?
Saturday night’s attack on a benign throng of club dancers, all young people on a fun night out not hurting anyone, is only somewhat ameliorated by the memory of yet another gathering, in Los Angeles, at the beginning of the week. Last Monday evening, I arrived to the marquee of the Kirk Douglas Theatre for ...
arts·meme turns eight, expresses self 18
May
23
2016
arts·meme has been a good little girl. She writes timely blog-posts, publishes them with nice pictures, inserts proper hot-links. Now it’s her turn to show off. Do-mi-so-do-so-mi-do. Fa-la-la-la. To celebrate the blog’s eighth birthday (founded on May 24, 2008 by Debra Levine with Mark Levine as talented tech man), arts•meme would like to sing you ...
The new normal: the Stones play La Habana 2
A super-special expression of a new reality. As native Britons, the Rolling Stones have never been particularly hamstrung by America’s culture-throttling 50-year trade embargo on Cuba. But with so many ties to the U.S. market (indeed with band members in residence here), they’ve surely been circumspect. Spreading the wild winds of Western civilization at the ...
Architects discuss the art (and politics) of performing arts centers
Performing arts centers define our cities and serve as architectural landmarks. These landmarks can rapidly transform the cultural and economic fabric of a city, bringing renewed prosperity as well as design inspiration. What is the essence of an iconic performing arts center? Enjoy a lively discussion combined with a memorable concert, and light refreshments. Moderator Thomas Small, ...
“All That Jack” talk a key element of Cole retrospective 2
It is exciting to share ideas, feelings and observations with a savvy audience about a master of cinematic dance. That’s Jack Cole, whom I have been researching, writing and giving talks about for eight years. Where better place to pay tribute to this influential, mid-century American artist than The Museum of Modern Art? And that ...
Reading tap 1
Dancing, like writing, is a craft before it is an art. Rare is the professional who excels at both; the thousands of hours of practice necessary to make an artist rarely allow time for rigorous training in another genre. Somewhere between the craft and the art, though, lie scholarship and criticism, and the world is ...
William Forsythe in conversation @ The Getty Center
Looking forward to a session of “Getty Perspectives” in which Alva Noё, professor of philosophy at UC Berkeley, will discuss his new book “Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature” with choreographer William Forsythe. The duo will ponder, in public, their take on the many connections between choreography and philosophical practices. Alva Noe & William Forsythe ...
Sit down and clap! 4
Oct
18
2015
Is polite, even fervent, audience applause from a seated position a bygone social custom? This nicety has not completely disappeared; last month at the conclusion of “Raymonda,” at Segerstrom Hall, it was a joy to regard the massive Mariinsky Ballet’s elegant bows in full view. The audience, perhaps still enthralled by the enormity of the ...
Sir Ken Robinson on the arts, at TedX Fulbright conference 4
Sep
30
2015
Parrying as an event host with the estimable educational thought-leader Sir Ken Robinson at the recent TedXFulbright Conference at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica (Sept, 26, 2015), I so enjoyed Sir Ken’s thoughtful and inspiring words about the arts: I talk a lot about creativity, but I’m very keen not to conflate creativity with ...