Waaaah Ricky, our movie’s terrible! 1

Film
Lucille Ball, held hostage in Aaron Sorkin’s brain in ‘Being The Ricardos’ (2021) So, count them, there are two movies now available, and curiously, both are streaming on Prime video. The first to be released was the biopic written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, Being The Ricardos. My notes written shortly after viewing here: Well, ...

George Chakiris: Riff before Bernardo

Dance · Film · Theater
George Chakiris as Riff in West Side Story, in 1959 It’s one of those fascinating show-biz factoids. For fourteen months, circa 1959, George Chakiris, a good friend of artsmeme, performed in the London company of West Side Story, at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London’s West End theater district. What is little known is that the ...

Paul Taylor American Modern Dance’s timely staging of Kurt Jooss classic ‘The Green Table’

Dance
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4th April 1953: The ‘Gentlemen in Black’ sit around the conference table and discuss war in a scene from Kurt Jooss’s award-winning modern ballet ‘The Green Table’. Original Publication: Picture Post – 6477 – 20th Century War Dance – pub. 1953 (Photo by John Chillingworth/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) In 2014, Paul Taylor, who died in ...

What is the pointe? Let’s ask Ballet22. 2

Dance
Carlos Hopuy, ‘etoile’ of Ballet 22Former Ballets Trockadero star Shoes matter. There are things — physical things — a dancer can do in pointe shoes that are simply not possible on “flat,” either in barefoot or in soft slippers. It’s about spin and speed. Balance and bravura. Line and elongation. Everyone in dance knows that ...

Nijinska’s heartstrings to Ukraine recalled by biographer Garafola

Dance
Nijinska (left) rehearsing Nina Vyroubova and Serge Golovine in her version of The Sleeping Beauty produced by the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas in 1960 ed. note: We are nearly paralyzed with concern for Ukraine, which has played such a vital role in dance and the arts, and is now under Russian attack. Giving ...

Swept away by ‘Mimi’ 50 years later: Laemmle Anniversary Classics salutes Lina Wertmuller

Film
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Ed. note: We celebrate woman artists on artsmeme, and that’s why Italian director Lina Wertmüller’s sexy, impish, outrageous, passionate ouevre of movies mixing sex, love and politics belongs on the blog. Our guest contributor is the host of Laemmle Theatre’s “Anniversary Screenings” series, Stephen Farber. To launch its Anniversary Classics series in 2022, and during ...

Vancouver’s ‘Ballet BC,’ resident dance company of The Soraya, to perform

Dance
photo by luques ed. note: This story by dance critic Debra Levine, commissioned and originally published by the Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for the Arts, is reprinted with permission. When the effervescent contemporary ballet troupe Ballet BC last appeared at The Soraya, it was indeed “BC”—Before Covid. The stellar dancers captivated the audience in ...

Gifted Cuban pianist López-Nussa to bring Soraya jazz fest to smoking finale

Music
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ed. note: The trio of concerts over a single weekend—Gerald Clayton Sextet (Feb 17), Gretchen Parlato (Feb 18), and the Harold López-Nussa Trio (Feb 19)—are the grand finale of the Soraya’s jazz festival, Jazz at Naz. This interview, conducted by artsmeme jazz writer, Kirk Silsbee, was commissioned by The Soraya and first appeared on the ...

Gerald Clayton, Gretchen Parlato set to open ‘Jazz at Naz’ weekend @ The Soraya

Music
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A trio of cutting-edge Jazz at Naz intimate concerts takes jazz’s temperature and points to the art form’s future. Hungry for the potent experience live music brings, jazz fans (safely distanced and masked) will encounter, over the course of one weekend, a blazing sextet, a sensual vocalist, and a scintillating up-and-coming pianist from Havana. The ...

REVIEW: Back to New York City Ballet — with sets and intermissions!

Dance · Reviews
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isabella lafreniere, jovani furlan christopher wheeldon’s DGV: danse à grande vitesse Scenery! Intermissions! One takes these for granted – or used to. But experiencing them as part of New York City Ballet‘s opening night marked another step toward normalcy, after the company’s fall repertory season consisted of intermissionless programs featuring ballets that require no time-consuming ...