Grotesqueries courtesy of Spanish performance artist Marta Carrasco
photo: david ruano An intriguing woman artist from Spain is being presented in multiple performances by the Latino Theater Company at the L.A. Theater Center downtown. It’s the dancer, choreographer and performance artist Marta Carrasco, in a show with an equally intriguing title, Perra de Nadie (“Nobody’s Bitch”). Well, that’s a nice girly name. [We ...
Love as a one-way street at the Panorama
Jun
6
2022
She won’t stop writing to me — e-mails, letters, texts, cards — but it’s not merely because I hardly know her that I no longer reply. It is the increasingly demanding tone, and the fact that a romance is gaining momentum without my needing to be involved.-Unrequited Love, by Gregory Dart You’ve heard of a ...
‘Pride month’ salutes film producer Harriet Parsons at UCLA Film Archive
Jun
3
2022
louella, harriet parsons, 1959 Along with Virginia Van Upp at Columbia Pictures and Joan Harrison at Universal, Harriet Parsons (1906-1983) was one of the very few women to make her mark in the industry as a feature film producer in the 1940s. Parsons got her start at Columbia creating myriad uncredited newsreel-like “documentary” shorts in ...
So good! Classic cartoons on Hollywood Legion Theater big screen
Jun
1
2022
WE’RE ON OUR WAY TO RIO (1945, J. Tyler/I. Sparber)Popeye and Bluto, on shore leave, visit Rio and fall in love with a bewitching Samba dancer, in this beautifully produced musical cartoon. Her name? Olive Oyl. So good! The 10th edition of the Alex Film Society’s The Greatest Cartoons Ever! to spool at the most ...
‘Mozart of Modern Dance’ visits Santa Monica’s Broad Stage
Jun
1
2022
It is problematic calling yourself “the Mozart of …” anything. And yet, that’s how the choreographer Mark Morris, in his press materials, chooses to frame his creativity — as the “Mozart of Modern Dance.” Morris, 65, whose 42-year-old Mark Morris Dance Group will present four performances of his 2006 creation, “Mozart Dances,” at Santa Monica’s ...
Rita Hayworth’s stardom on staircases
May
25
2022
ed. note: Do you know what "press books" were in the movie industry of high Hollywood? We didn't either, until a nice librarian at USC named Ned Comstock introduced the press book from the 1946 film noir, Gilda. Columbia Pictures, where the movie originated, employed public relations people to create little compendia of story ideas ...
Letter from Uvalde
matthew mcconaughey “The true call to action now is for every American to take a longer and deeper look in the mirror, and ask ourselves: ‘What is it that we truly value? How do we repair the problem? What small sacrifices can we individually take today, to preserve a healthier and safer nation, state and ...
Jack Cole ‘discovered’ Steve Reeves
As you see from the above “information sheet” for “Theatre World” magazine, Steve Reeves, the astonishingly buff muscle guy in his first creative foray worked for the choreographer Jack Cole in Kismet on Broadway. Reeves played the “Wazir” [chief of police]’s guard. Reeves (not to be confused with George Reeves, television’s “Superman”) was big on ...
Bijayini Satpathy animates Met Museum galleries with her dance
photo credit: stephanie berger When Odissi dancer Bijayini Satpathy was selected as the MetLiveArts Artist in Residence for 2021-22, she contemplated how to use the much-coveted opportunity─a year-long association with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its superlative architecture and collections. Satpathy was still in the nascent stages of exploring her own choreographic voice when ...
Peace for Ukraine: the paintings of Leonid Steele 1
May
9
2022
Daisies (1971), Leonid Steele ed. note: We are pleased to share images of the work of Leonid Steele shared by his son Alexey Steele, who himself is a painter of great force, a host of Classical Underground, and a friend of artsmeme (FOAM). Alexey and his wife Olya have organized a group in Los Angeles, ...