Balanchine invites you to a ball
What a dream is the performance (video below) of a duet from George Balanchine’s “Vienna Waltzes” sublimely danced by Karin von Aroldingen and Peter Martins. “Vienna Waltzes” had its premiere at New York City Ballet on June 23, 1977. Original cast: Karin von Aroldingen, Sean Lavery, Patricia McBride, Helgi Tomasson, Sara Leland, Bart Cook, Kay ...
L.A. traffic jam inside Caroline Graham’s home 2
Super-publicist Caroline Graham’s holiday party in Santa Monica last night was akin to the 405 freeway bumper-to-bumper. Navigating the human traffic-jam conjured Blake Edwards’s party scene in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” It took a full forty minutes to cross Caroline’s cozy living room to greet a friend. It took just as long in the other direction ...
Janet Jackson, queen of the desert, thrills fans @ McCallum Theatre gala 4
Twenty minutes after Janet Jackson’s much anticipated “Number Ones: Up Close and Personal” gala concert was scheduled to start Thursday evening at Palm Desert’s McCallum Theatre, some in the audience began to squirm in their seats. Many of the theater’s older patrons, though geared for an unusual performance, were unaccustomed to late-starting rock shows. Suddenly, ...
To Palm Desert to see Janet Jackson
Dec
1
2011
After a weird and crazy night of windstorms in Los Angeles, we’re departing power-free Los Feliz and heading into the sandstorms of the California desert, east of Palm Springs. An amazing experience awaits us; we’re seeing Janet Jackson perform in a very small and intimate space, the McCallum Theatre of Palm Desert. Stay tuned to ...
Go south, PST people — to Long Beach and Orange County
Pacific Standard Time got you overwhelmed? Me too, guys! But here’s a way to break it up, geographically speaking. The weekend of 3-4 December you can lose the L.A.-centricity and check out what’s going on Down Under, you know … Behind the Orange Curtain, er… I mean, you can visit our dear neighbors to the ...
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 ...
Joseph Horowitz’s spoken-word exploration of Mahler marriage to precede Pacific Symphony’s Mahler Ninth symphony
Our trek southward along the mighty 405 freeway this Thursday evening will be a journey in search of musical profundity. And like a good DVD, it comes with bonus material. We’re attending the Pacific Symphony performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 9, considered one of his greatest works, a sweeping musical exposition of the composer’s innermost ...
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 ...