At Santa Fe Opera, not “Oscar”-worthy 2
Ascending the hallowed hilltop upon which Santa Fe Opera roosts is a treasured journey — even for the initiated. The massive parking lot is sprinkled with “tailgaters,” their fold-out picnic tables draped in linen, wine bottles atilt in ice buckets. It’s the first visual hint of a wonderful evening in store. Outdoor “lobbies” that encircle ...
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet takes on Cayetano Soto 2
You’re seated amidst a smallish audience in a theater in the middle of the country. You’re not in New York, you’re not in London. But you’re watching an advancement the art of classical ballet. It’s the premiere, this past weekend in Aspen, Colorado, of a new work by Cayetano Soto for Aspen Santa Fe Ballet ...
Balanchine visits Grand Park, courtesy of Los Angeles Ballet
Perhaps it was City Hall — imposing, authoritarian, standing “at attention” behind Grand Park’s platform stage — that riveted the crowd. People were afraid that if they misbehaved, they’d get busted. Or blame it on Balanchine. A huge throng of more than 3,000 respectful onlookers serenely watched Los Angeles Ballet present a double-bill of works ...
Back-up singers to the fore in “Twenty Feet From Stardom” 1
Providing a spectacular opening event of the second season of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science’s “Oscars Outdoors” series: “Twenty Feet from Stardom.” The badly titled but otherwise smashing new documentary concerns a great subject: the art of the pop music back-up singer. Directed by Morgan Neville, it’s a must-see movie about American ...
Ricky Jay’s magical existence examined in “Deceptive Practice”
“Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries & Mentors of Ricky Jay,” a new documentary directed by Alan Edelstein and Molly Bernstein, is a love story. Oh …you thought it was about magic? Well, isn’t love the ultimate magic trick? The film’s early sequences show Ricky Jay, magician, scholar, collector, author, historian and actor, obsessively practicing his card ...
Elgart’s aquatic adventure @ the Music Center 1
A marvelous event opened the annual Dance Camera West film festival Thursday evening. At dusk, we gathered ’round the Jacques Lipchitz “Peace on Earth” sculpture-fountain that anchors the plaza of the Los Angeles Music Center, one of our city’s rare pedestrian hobnobbing spots. Suddenly a tall tube of ruby fabric mysteriously appeared and began to ...
Strong female film characters on parade @ COL*COA
French actress Jeanne Moreau, platinum blonde and wrapped in a feather boa, poses in vast ennui in BAY OF ANGELS (1963) written and directed by Jacques Demy. Moreau plays a bored upper class housewife on an existential bender in the south of France. She gloms onto a young drifter, Jean, first by his pocketbook and ...
Review: Kenny Barron hits the hoops for Da Camera Society concert
It was a jazz concert in an unlikely locale. Pianist Kenny Barron, whose teammates have included Roy Haynes, Lee Morgan, James Moody, Dizzy Gillespie, Milt Jackson, and Yusef Lateef, unleashed a magical solo piano recital in a boy’s gym. It was the refurbished indoor basketball court of the 28th Street YMCA Building — a glorious ...
Review: Quirky master-photog Bert Stern captured in doc 1
It doesn’t matter that “Bert Stern: Original Madman” falls short in depicting the hectic life and work of the go-go photographer of the sixties. The documentary, a first major effort by Shannah Laumeister, is unevenly told, biased toward the actress-turned-director’s own personal relationship with Stern, and values cheap story elements over artful ones. Yet the ...
Book review: ‘Hermes Pan, The Man Who Danced with Fred Astaire’ 3
A book review first published by Dance Magazine [December 2012] Growing up in Memphis as the son of Greek immigrants, Hermes Pan (1909–1990) copped dance steps from the family’s African-American household help. Fast-forward to the Depression, when the self-taught Hollywood choreographer’s black-and-white dance fantasies for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers offered Americans escape. The versatile ...