You up there in the rafters, stop chewing gum! Gustavo Dudamel conducts Mahler’s Eighth @ the Shrine

Music
We don’t have airs, we don’t have pretenses. We’re not Europe, we’re not New York. It’s the Wild West, and we like it like that. What we do have, in spades, is space. Yes, space. Room to move, grow, think, and innovate. And in our big barn of a Shrine Auditorium, with its hefty square ...

Talent! Joy! Pure pleasure! Thank you Don Cornelius.

Dance · Music
What a mover~! Put Michael Jackson right up in the dance superstratum. How I wish I could have saved him.

Jungle boogie

Dance

Mike Kelley (1954-2012)

Visual arts
Twinkling Coppers (from “Plato’s Cave, Rothko’s Chapel, Lincoln’s Profile”), 1986 Acrylic on canvas with penny and string of multi-colored flashing electrical Christmas lights 60 x 60 x 3 3/8 inches (152.4 x 152.4 x 8.6 cm) Artist Mike Kelley died today. Story here. Peter Frank, Associate Editor of Fabrik magazine and art critic for The Huffington ...

Tattoo you, Jackson Pollock, on your 100th birthday

Visual arts
Arts writer Mat Gleason walks the walk where the great abstract painter, Jackson Pollock, is concerned. It’s a permanent love story. Gleason, the prime agent provocateur of The Huffington Post arts page, puts it succinctly: “When people ask me who my favorite artist is, I just roll up my sleeve.” Pollock, who died violently in ...

Sculpture meets photography in Peter Schlesinger’s L.A. homecoming show

Visual arts
Days after seeing Peter Schlesinger’s wonderful photograph, France 1968 (above), part of the L.A.-born artist’s sculpture and photography show at Duke & Duke Gallery, I figured out why I love  it. It reminds me of a David Hockney painting. The hot color clash, cool depiction of the leisure class, and disparate figures all hearken the ...

Dance preservationist Norton Owen honored with ‘Dance in Focus’ award 1

Dance
On 20 January 2012, the Dance on Camera Festival, now powering up in New York, honored Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Director of Preservation, Norton Owen, for his outstanding contribution to the dance film genre. [click on photo for detail] Said Marta Renzi, board president of the Dance Films Association, which runs the annual Lincoln center ...

What makes a Balanchine ballerina? Meet Carol Sumner. 1

Dance
A relatively short torso astride a dauntingly long set of legs. A straight, strong, vertically held back. A house style of aggressive physical attack. All are in evidence in photos of Carol Sumner, a former soloist with New York City Ballet. She danced for Mr. Balanchine from 1958 to 1978, twenty years that she calls ...

Where industry meets the arts

Dance · Visual arts
E.O. Hoppé, Large Alternator, Siemens-Schuckert werk, Gartenfeld, Germany, 1928 Unknown photographer, GE Plant in Schenectady, 1934. Features Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers (Shawn at center) Hoppe photo credit: E.O. Hoppé Estate Collection, courtesy Graham Howe Shawn photo courtesy, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival Archive, courtesy Norton Owen Like this? Read more: Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival ...

Jack Cole rocks Rita Hayworth’s world in “Tonight and Every Night” (1945) 1

Dance · Film
The ditty she sings is inane (remember, it was the War!) and the costume is not her greatest. But Rita Hayworth does her thing prettily enough. Life changes when a monster-dancer joins her on stage — Jack Cole. Choreographers: Pay attention @ 1:43.  That is how to make an entrance — sliding in on your ...