Raymonda “likes” Jean de Brienne’s profile picture
In this image from Act I of the Mariinsky Ballet’s “Raymonda,” the heroine’s faraway beau, Jean de Brienne, sends his honey a Medieval version (a kind of tapestry that gets unfurled) of his Facebook profile picture. From her posture, don’t you think she seems to be giving it a “like”? I do.
Mat Gleason (still) putting us on edge
We’re fans, at arts·meme, of art critic-provocateur and coagula art journal editor Mat Gleason, especially when Gleason, himself a monster of the internet, flatly pronounces, “Social media for artists is a time suck.” So we’re intrigued to hear Mat’s lastest ideas concerning the show he has just curated at Cypress College, near to Orange County. Fun ...
Meanwhile, in Milan, Virgilio Sieni’s “Atlas of Gesture”
Do you think about dance as a form of communication? Italian choreographer Virgilio Sieni does, and he presents his ideas in a rigorous examination of the human gesture that underpins our art form. A performance of Sieni’s work, ‘Atlante del gesto’ (Atlas of gesture) a commissioned work to soon spool in architect Rem Koolhaus‘s exceptional ...
Grover Dale’s Labor Day wish for dancers 1
It takes a dance legend with a resume as impressive as dancer/choreographer/dance educator Grover Dale to bring it down to what really matters. Yes, it’s work. Yes, you need the money. But, hey, dancer … do it because you have to. The above sketch was shared on this Labor Day weekend by Grover, the creative ...
Meet Marilyn Meme•roe
From Wikipedia: Memetics is a theory of mental content based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution, originating from the popularization of Richard Dawkins’ 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Proponents describe memetics as an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. The choreographer Jack Cole, a creative genius, had the ability to perpetuate the meme ...
Hollywood ‘pioneers, dreamers & misfits’ delight Landis, Beauchamp
Pioneers, dreamers and misfits: this perspicacious trio of descriptors Hollywood historian Cari Beauchamp has selected to characterize the actors, artists, directors, and assorted fruits and nuts who arrived in early Los Angeles to populate the burgeoning film industry. Burgeoning may be an overstatement. This was a place where the welcome mat sometimes read, “No actors, ...
It depends on your point of view, says David Hockney @ L.A. Louver
“Painting and Photography,” a solo exhibition of new work by David Hockney developed over the past two years in his Los Angeles studio, explores the relationship between painting and photography, the artist’s interest in depicting perspective, as well as his fascination with using new technology to create images. The show marks Hockney’s 16th solo exhibition at ...
Donna Sternberg’s 30 years of probing dance discovery
It’s an honor to celebrate with choreographer Donna Sternberg, this weekend, thirty years of steady dance making in Los Angeles — her keen and inquisitive nature knitting dance to the real world in unusual ways. Sternberg founded her company in 1985, after working and touring with Donald Byrd, Mary Jane Eisenberg, Yen Lu Wong and ...
‘PillowNote’ for BODYTRAFFIC @ Jacob’s Pillow
Excerpt courtesy of Jacob’s Pillow: Of the companies vying for the attention of Los Angeles’s newly fervored dance audience, BODYTRAFFIC, making its second appearance at Jacob’s Pillow, naturally aspired to top prominence. Lately, however, co-artistic directors Lillian Barbeito and Tina Berkett have adjusted that goal. “When people thought of Los Angeles, we wanted to BODYTRAFFIC ...
Interviewing top television talent Jeff Eastin
Jun
24
2015
On arts•meme, we keep a pretty strict focus on the performing arts, sometimes neglecting our most respected and hardest working of artists: writers. We recently interviewed one of the top successful writer/producers now working in the hot medium of television. He’s Jeff Eastin, and his series, “Graceland” launches into its third new season Thursday night ...