What makes a balletomane? A lean.
Sep
21
2011
If when peering at this Andrea Mohin photo for the New York Times … ~your heart picks up pace, ~ it messes you up, ~ you “get it,” ~ you feel deep joy … seeing the way that David Hallberg is leaning away from his “Giselle” partner, Natasha Osipova, well then … mazel tov, you’re ...
Invertigo Dance Theatre’s fun with clutter
Sep
21
2011
This image (clickable) from Invertigo Dance Theatre’s upcoming “Fun in Limbo” caught my eye. The amusing furniture-mountain was inspired, says choreographer Laura Karlin, by the Mother of all Hoarders, Miss Havisham, from Dickens’s Great Expectations. The nutty pile of junk gives physical form to the insane overabundance of data and objects swirling ’round all of ...
How could this happen? David Hallberg joins Bolshoi Ballet 2
Sep
21
2011
In a tremendous blow to American ballet, our best home-grown talent, literally a corn-fed farm boy from South Dakota, David Hallberg, 29, announced today that he is joining the Bolshoi Ballet. Ka-thunk. This caps off, in one stunning announcement, twenty years, at a minimum, of Europe stealing the U.S.’s thunder as the global bastion of ...
Hans Burkhardt survey exhibition @ Jack Rutberg Fine Arts
Sep
20
2011
“Untitled,” 1953 oil on canvas, 31 x 36 inches Hans Burkhardt’s (1904–1994) expansive career and influence in Los Angeles is the focus of a survey exhibition of paintings and drawings entitled Hans Burkhardt: Within & Beyond the Mainstream. The exhibition participates in the Getty Research Institute’s Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945 – 1980. ...
Emilio Doorgasingh, actor, “terrorist” & funny Indian
You meet a great mix of people in L.A. Dare I say, ‘fruits and nuts’? It’s all the more fun when the chatter happens at a garden party like the one Bill Stern convened in the soft air ricocheting ’round Malibu’s Carbon Canyon Sunday afternoon. Stern’s annual fundraiser for the Museum of California Design is ...
Jorma Elo’s smart-looking “Overglow”
Sep
18
2011
We haven’t seen “Overglow” yet. It was created just this past summer in the mystical terrain of Santa Fe, New Mexico. There, superstar choreographer, Jorma Elo, sculpted “Overglow,” set to music by Beethoven and Mendelssohn, on the bending human pretzels of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts, located outside Washington ...
Malcolm McDowell memories: Lindsay Anderson & Stanley Kubrick 3
Sep
17
2011
On Lindsay Anderson, with whom he worked on “If” & “O Lucky Man” He was a great man. He was a genius. And I say that even though today you’re a genius if you can do a crossword puzzle. He was a real curmudgeon; for a young actor, to put in so much time, he ...
Malcolm McDowell: “I love Cagney.”
Sep
17
2011
Charming the knickers off his audience by telling witty tales of Stanley Kubrick and Lindsay Anderson, actor Malcolm McDowell earned extra points by showing respect to the great James Cagney. The occasion was the 40th anniversary screening, at the Academy of Motion Picture of Arts & Sciences in Beverly Hills, of Kubrick’s exuberant, brilliant, thought-provoking ...
Meow! Bette Davis discusses her dear colleague Joan Crawford 3
Sep
16
2011
Quotations from Chairman Bette: “I wouldn’t piss on her [Joan Crawford] if she was on fire.” “She [Joan Crawford] has slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie.” “Why am I so good at playing bitches? I think it’s because I’m not a bitch. Maybe that’s why [Joan Crawford] always plays ladies.” “[Joan Crawford] ...
Serenade: C’est un ballet abstrait.
Everything sounds better in French. That’s a given. But beyond sounding beautiful, the lovely and poetic program note posted below tackles the hard job of putting the ephemeral into words. What’s the subject? “Serenade,” a ballet that in its making, and in the viewing of it, touches God. C’est un ballet abstrait. C’est- á-dire, sans intention ...