LACMA ‘Found in Translation’ documents Mexi-Cali design dialogue 1
From Sacramento to San Diego, California’s Mexican and Spanish underpinnings are as historic as they are pervasive. We often take those connections for granted, but LACMA’s exhibition “Found in Translation: Design in California and Mexico, 1915-1985” offers a fascinating view of the influence and confluence between the two cultures in the 20th Century. It’s part ...
REVIEW: Kimin Kim brings action-hero explosiveness to Mariinsky Schéhérazade 2
I admit that prior to Sunday night I had never seen a full-length, fully produced staging of Michel Fokine’s Schéhérazade — including lengthy orchestral prelude, sets, costumes, the works. The Mariinsky Ballet and Orchestra delivered their version this weekend at Segerstrom Center for the Arts as part of an all-Fokine program. At Sunday’s performance, the ...
REVIEW: Michelle Dorrance Dance @ The Wallis 1
The night before seeing Dorrance Dance at The Wallis in Beverly Hills I binge- watched Astaire and Rogers clips on YouTube. Such elegant technique! Two bodies moving as one in gauzy ballrooms. Dancing as if on air. In the 1930s and ‘40s, Fred and Ginger embodied love and luxury for a generation eager to escape ...
Review: Karen Sherman’s “Soft Goods” @ CAP UCLA
As the Freud Playhouse lost its moorings and ran amok in the final harrowing minutes of choreographer Karen Sherman’s “Soft Goods,” presented Saturday night at UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance, I’d be hard pressed to believe that the audience, too, did not become untethered. An out-of-control fog machine spewed smoke from stage to ...
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 ...