Happy birthday, Barrie Chase! 1
Wishing a wonderful birthday to a leggy lady, the great Hollywood dancer Barrie Chase. She not only graced Fred Astaire as his final partner, she brought her own strong, vixen presence as a solo dancer (on view in the video, dancing to “The Girl from Ipanema”) to millions of American television viewers in the 1960s. ...
Terence Donovan, British photog who chronicled sixties
Photographer David Bailey (born 1938) is said to have given us a visual vocabulary with which we remember Swinging Sixties London. But he didn’t do it alone. Though not as celebrated, Terence Donovan (1936-1996) and Brian Duffy (1933-2010) did groundbreaking work in their own right. All three triangulated fashion photography with movies and pop culture ...
Review: ballerina Wendy Whelan in new documentary 1
We all have problems, right? In the case of Wendy Whelan, the equivalent of a prima ballerina assoluta if only New York City Ballet had that designation, the problem in dance season 2013-14 was how to gracefully exit the stage and transition to civilian life. For thirty years, the reed-thin, Kentucky-born ballet-thoroughbred reigned as the ...
Barbie art – fall sale
Oct
16
2016
arts•meme friend Judy Ragagli, the creator of this Barbie art, is running a fall sale, with discounts and free shipping of her oil paintings, in celebration of the autumn season. Barbie art fall sale | for special prices email JRagagli@mac.com
Looks amazing: Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s ‘Babel(words)’@ Lincoln Center 2
I’m interested — who isn’t? — in the changing ways in which society is communicating. And I wonder how dance can play an active role as, increasingly, words matter less and the visual (and visceral) matters more. (A very wise man recently told us, “It’s just words.”) So I’m looking forward to “Babel(words),” a new ...
Ed Wood’s ‘Plan 9’ joins forces with marionette ‘Spooktacular’
Director/auteur Ed Wood’s low-budget classic, Plan 9 From Outer Space, was loathed by critics upon release. It became a cult classic. The cast of the film included Maila Nurmi, credited as Vampira, and Bela Lugosi, who famously died during production and was replaced by Ed Wood’s chiropractor, Dr. Tom Mason. The making of Plan 9 From ...
Jazz for angels and others at Angel City Jazz Festival 1
It’s been nine years but the Angel City Jazz Festival, the Los Angeles music conflagration built on bringing cutting-edge sounds to the Southland, has not only survived, it has flourished. Impresario Rocco Somazzi, well regarded for the adventurous booking policy of his Rocco Ristorante in Bel Air, embarked on a week-long series of concerts for ...
‘German Currents’ Film Festival reaches 10-year mark
Oct
12
2016
It’s a decade, this year, for the annual German Currents film festival in Los Angeles, co-sponsored by The Goethe Institute and the American Cinematheque. Fittingly, the program has been expanded to include 10 Los Angeles premieres, peppered with conversations with prolific German directors, writers and actors. Award winning director Wolfgang Becker (“Good Bye Lenin!”) will ...
Jack Cole’s nightclub act: a talk by Debra Levine Oct 25
A review headline screamed, “Cyclone Hits Slapsy Maxie’s.” The performance? Jack Cole and His Dancers at the Wilshire Boulevard supper club in 1948. In the house: Frank Sinatra, Robert Walker, Jimmy Durante, Lucille Ball, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Jimmy Dorsey, Max Baer. Also attending, according to the review, “Bullets Durgom still without a toupee.” Cole ...
Bolshoi means BIG
Travel back to the Roaring ’20s in Europe with “The Golden Age,” broadcast live from Moscow and danced by the Bolshoi Ballet to music by Dmitri Shostakovich and choreography by Yuri Grigorovich. A stunning cabaret dancer must choose between her love for a visiting fisherman and the leader of a gang, who is also her ...