Irene gives her regards to Broadway 1
Aug
27
2011
In New York on a visit to the marvelous Library of the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, it’s been a five-day, non-stop hurricane watch. No hurricane could possibly be as harrowing as the run-up to Hurricane Irene, which has succeeded in making a nervous wreck out of an entire city. And one visiting dance critic ...
Rita’s dad
Hurricane Irene, heading our direction in New York City, where we are visiting, can prove no match for Hurricane Rita. Lovely Rita’s dancing father, Eduardo Cansino, tangoes here, courtesy of the digital photo collection of the New York Public Library. I spent the last two days in the glorious Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center, ...
Diaper changed, he’s ready for his close-up Mr. DeMille
Aug
22
2011
Foraging around the internet for information on Cecil B. DeMille’s great one, I was delighted to learn about Fraser Heston. A guy of my generation, Fraser, at the tender age of three months, made his film debut playing Baby Moses in “The Ten Commandments.” Now, Fraser mostly had to float around the bullrushes waiting for ...
Met @ Jacob’s Pillow: post-modern dance pioneer Trisha Brown
trisha brown, burt barr, jacob’s pillow dance festival What an honor to meet the great Trisha Brown, who graced Jacob’s Pillow with a three-day visit in tandem with her company’s 40th anniversary performances here. Accompanying the influential post-modern-dance choreographer was Burt Barr, the video artist, and also Brown’s husband. In the photos: Trisha Brown, ...
Another handsome Israeli man surfaces 1
Aug
19
2011
Okay, he’s not quite Israeli, he’s a Roman god, but they found him in Israel. A rare second-century statue of the mythic hero Hercules has been found in Israel, archaeologists reported today. The buff marble masterpiece likely decorated a niche in a Roman bathhouse. The intervening centuries have left Hercules headless, but his bulging muscles ...
At Jacob’s Pillow, with dance writers
Drawn to the Berkshires by an touching inter-generational mix of post-modern-dance artistry — Trisha Brown Dance Company celebrating its fortieth anniversary year at the Ted Shawn Theater, Jodi Melnick & David Neumann in the Doris Duke’s black box — a parade of dance writers sojourned to Jacob’s Pillow this weekend. We have: Jenny Hansell, Lakeville ...
What friendship hath wrought: Jodi Melnick & David Neumann’s “July” premieres at Jacob’s Pillow
“July,” a stirring dance duet whose refined physical beauty gives form to its tender emotions, had its premiere Wednesday night before the great open backstage door of Jacob Pillow Dance Festival’s Doris Duke Theater. The gifted duo, Jodi Melnick, a former Twyla Tharp dancer, and David Neumann, a dance-theater-comedy specialist, created the absorbing work on ...
Pillowtalk.2011 release 4
Beyond giving me a life-long hankering for a pink counter top, “Pillow Talk,” the Rock Hudson/Doris Day romantic comedy, is not to my liking. Made in 1959 right when I was hitting little girlhood, I find the film’s fifties innuendo and double-entendres, well, nauseating. My ’50s guy is Jack Cole — hard core, provocative, sexy, ...
Jane McAdam Freud memorializes her father Lucian
Aug
4
2011
We met the artist, Jane McAdam Freud, here in Los Angeles at her September, 2010 gallery show in Beverly Hills, and found it very easy to converse and connect with her. She is a friend of arts·meme, and we are very honored to reprint her wonderful memorial essay to her father from The Guardian. We ...
Jacaranda’s lovely musical edge
Aug
3
2011
It was one of those heaven-sent Sunday afternoons in Los Angeles — the ambient temperature so idyllic that you floated freely without a modicum of pushback from Mother Nature. And in this effortless environment, we very much enjoyed an afternoon of plein air classical music, courtesy of Jacaranda, Music at the Edge. In a garden ...