Review: Twyla Tharp’s 50th, reminder of a revolutionary
photo: Sharen Bradford, New York Times Watching Twyla Tharp’s 50th Anniversary Tour performance at The Wallis in Beverly Hills was like taking a trip down memory lane with an old friend. (The Wallis co-commissioned the tour with four other presenters including The Joyce Theater in New York.) The old magic was there in Tharp’s juxtaposition ...
Gehry! Honoring L.A.’s great architect-designer
Oct
2
2015
A great party approaches at the end of October: Bill Stern’s annual fundraiser to support the virtual Museum of California Design. This year ‘s great ‘get,’ the honoring of the sage and visionary architect and designer Frank Gehry, who will be granted the Museum’s 2015 Henry Award for Outstanding Contributions to American Design by a ...
Sir Ken Robinson on the arts, at TedX Fulbright conference 4
Sep
30
2015
Parrying as an event host with the estimable educational thought-leader Sir Ken Robinson at the recent TedXFulbright Conference at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica (Sept, 26, 2015), I so enjoyed Sir Ken’s thoughtful and inspiring words about the arts: I talk a lot about creativity, but I’m very keen not to conflate creativity with ...
Raymonda “likes” Jean de Brienne’s profile picture
In this image from Act I of the Mariinsky Ballet’s “Raymonda,” the heroine’s faraway beau, Jean de Brienne, sends his honey a Medieval version (a kind of tapestry that gets unfurled) of his Facebook profile picture. From her posture, don’t you think she seems to be giving it a “like”? I do.
Mariinsky’s massive, still relevant, “Raymonda” at Segerstrom
Sep
29
2015
A whirlwind weekend included the privilege of watching the great dancers of the Mariinsky Theatre deliver a rarity: the full three-act version of Petipa’s Hungarian-themed, “Raymonda,” which the massive dance troupe exactingly performed, a tad jam-packed, on the Segerstrom Hall stage. It went beyond a complete balletic experience; it felt like a life experience to ...
Jack Cole choreography for GILDA set to sizzle on UCLA Film Archive big screen 1
Do you enjoy this classic image of Rita Hayworth as GILDA? It’s a capture from Hayworth’s iconic high-end striptease, “Put the Blame on Mame,” choreographed by Jack Cole, the brilliant dance maker who rocked Hayworth’s world at Columbia Pictures in the 1940s. Cole’s dance numbers (“Put the Blame on Mame,” “Amado Mio“), taken together, raise ...
What a week! Los Angeles blossoms in the fine arts
I’ve inhabited Los Angeles more or less, since 1989. The city’s rich art existence, long undetected, has kept me busy and happy here. There is little doubt, however, that something arts-phenomenal is happening right now in our city. It must be true; the New York Times is sputtering about it all the time. In fact, ...
Congratulations, Raven Wilkinson, recipient of Dance/USA 2015 Trustees Award
Sep
23
2015
Two of classical ballet’s loveliest and most well-spoken ballerinas, American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Misty Copeland in a charming interview with a woman on whose shoulders she stands, the pioneering African-American ballerina Raven Wilkinson. Photo credit, Raven Wilkinson portrait, Andros on Ballet
Let’s honor Rudy Perez
Sep
23
2015
A very nice upcoming event at the UC Irvine’s Experimental Media Peformance Lab will honor an American modern-dance iconoclast, dancer/choreographer Rudy Perez. The free event features an appearance by Perez, world premier by the Rudy Perez Performance Ensemble as well as a short documentary on his extraordinary choreographic achievements. Mr. Perez joined the legendary Judson ...
Eugene Loring coaches Daniel Levans as “Billy the Kid”
Sep
22
2015
Ever wonder what ballet coaching does? Above, Eugene Loring (right), choreographer of “Billy the Kid” and ballet master of the American School of Dance on Hollywood Boulevard as well as founder of the dance department at UC Irvine, coaches Daniel Levans in a 1973 re-staging of his work. (Levans, sadly, just passed away.) John Kriza, ...