REVIEW: ‘Bobbi Jene,’ life-and-love in contemporary-dance lane
Bobbi Jene Smith, Or Schraiber in “Bobbi Jene” Tropes and customs of the world of contemporary dance are on view in the new dance-documentary, Bobbi Jene, soon to open in Los Angeles. Rarefied and bizarre rituals, notably a naked dancer, that would be the titular Bobbi Jene, masturbating against a sandbag before a roomful of ...
Our review: TULIP FEVER from A to Z 1
arts·meme friend and avid movie fan Owen Simon contributes a boiled-down film review that tours his gamut of emotions, from A to Z, for TULIP FEVER recently released by the Weinstein Company. Tom Stoppard’s screenplay depicts a 17th-century painter in Amsterdam who falls in love with a married woman whose portrait he has been hired ...
REVIEW: Savion Glover sizzling at the Ford 2
It is a Dance Criticism 401 assignment describing Savion Glover in performance — savagely fit, in top form, at his most forthcoming. Words fall short. Yet that is what we had at Saturday’s festive season-opener of the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre. The refurbished Ford’s long commitment to dance, season after season presenting local and visiting ...
arts·meme goes to ‘The Circus’ 1
It’s the eternal cliche … .”fun for kids of all ages.” But hey, half the experience comes from watching a show with little ones. And they are a great audience. Legendary puppeteer Bob Baker‘s “The Circus,” a classic marionette revue now on at Bob Baker Marionette Theater, has been specially restaged for summer viewing — ...
Lauridsen’s ‘Lux Aeterna’ centerpiece of rich Master Chorale program
Editor’s note: A guest author on the blog today, Patrick Scott, who shares his observations of Thursday’s performance of the Los Angeles Master Chorale. ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ Twenty years ago Morten Lauridsen‘s “Lux Aeterna” became an enormous game changer for American choral music. Last night the Los Angeles Master Chorale, hosting the annual Chorus ...
Andrea Martin, beautiful & funny, in support of Armenian women in need 2
We so enjoyed last night’s cabaret-style performance by actress Andrea Martin, accompanied by her versatile sidekick (every woman needs one) Seth Rudetsky. The evening-length fundraiser for the Armenian International Women’s Association took place at North Hollywood’s show-bizzy El Portal Theater. Paying respect to her Armenian family background, the multiple Emmy Award-winning and two-time Tony Award-winning ...
Review: Kyle Abraham’s superlative A.I.M. @ The Broad Stage
Only a handful of contemporary choreographers could pull off an evening of the magnitude and excellence that Kyle Abraham did last night, together with his 8-member dance company, Abraham.in.Motion, at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica. For this type of presentation, that featuring the voice of a single choreographer, Kyle is now kyng. He’s keeping ...
Alma would be happy. Celebrating the UCLA dance department, the nation’s first 7
It was nearly an uproar; a spontaneous outpouring of love and appreciation filled the room when the image of Alma Hawkins, the founder and guiding force behind the dance program at UCLA (now called World Arts and Cultures/Dance), was flashed on an on-stage screen. “A Celebration of UCLA Dance 1962-2017” was not the anticipated turgid ...
REVIEW: Lionel Popkin’s ‘Inflatable Trio’ at the Skirball 1
Do you sense that things are changing in ways that make you uneasy? That even our most familiar modes of operating—what political pundits call “norms,” for example public civility—are in upheaval? Choreographer Lionel Popkin has made a dance about this. His charming and successful “Inflatable Trio,” a fun hour-long pageant for three dancers, premiered at ...
Very now, very Pam-Tan
Watching it, it has the feeling of today: choreographer Pam Tanowitz’s “thunder rolling along afterward,” an emotionally fraught, 20-minute-long work fashioned for a sleek tribe of Juilliard School dance majors. Along with contributions by John Heginbotham, Katarzyna Skarpetowska, Matthew Neenan, Tanowitz’s “thunder” comprised the Juilliard School’s annual showcase, “New Dances: Edition 2016.” What is that ...