John Jasperse tells his truth … at REDCAT
New York choreographer John Jasperse’s engaging dance work with the coy name, “Truth, Revised Histories, Wishful Thinking, and Flat-out Lies,” confirms the obvious. And that is that of the many wonderful outposts for dance in Los Angeles, REDCAT is the most happening. Highlights of the REDCAT dance season included the re-staging of Anna Halprin’s “Parades ...
arts•meme to attend TCM classic film festival 2
Apr
16
2010
arts•meme will be part of the press corps at the first ever TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood for four days beginning April 22. More than 50 classic films will be screened at Hollywood’s historic Chinese and Egyptian theaters with appearances by Mel Brooks, Luise Rainer, Ernest Borgnine, Jerry Lewis, Eva Marie Saint, Tony Curtis, ...
NEA dance writer boot camp accepting applications
Apr
14
2010
A truly unique opportunity awaits a dance writer — established or aspiring — who is motivated to endure the tough boot camp known as the NEA Dance Institute … to be held at the American Dance Festival at Duke University this summer. But you need to apply now. Deadline looms next Friday April 23rd. Application ...
Meredith Monk, liberator of singers
Multimedia artist Meredith Monk, labeled avant-garde for her reducing of dance, music, and drama to their most basic and powerful elements, gave the great voices of the Los Angeles Master Chorale a remarkable gift: their bodies. Halfway through “Songs of Ascension,” the final work of Sunday evening’s Monk tribute, the singers circulated the stage of Disney ...
Herr Haselboeck’s precarious perch 1
Musica Angelica’s Palm Sunday performance of St. John Passion at Santa Monica’s First United Methodist Church had us afloat in the infinite beauty of Bach’s musical soundscape. But it also had us glued to our chairs as Martin Haselboeck, the orchestra’s music director, balanced backwards on the edge of the stage conducting Bach’s massive score ...
Bill T. Jones / Dance Theater Workshop merger 1
Apr
4
2010
A major merger in the New York dance world is in the works. The 25-year-old Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company is in final negotiations to merge with Dance Theater Workshop. The two groups will combine their boards and staff into one entity with a new name and mission, though the final details are still ...
Flamenco fury at Fountain Theater
The petite lady in the photo, a Frida Kahlo lookalike named Palomo Rios, is a spitfire dancer whose performance at the Fountain Theater’s “Forever Flamenco” series we had the great pleasure of viewing last Sunday evening . One suggestion: Do not get on Ms. Rios’s bad side. She’ll hurl her compact body through space, seizing ...
Our exigent film-viewing life in Los Angeles 2
Apr
1
2010
We are truly April fools! It’s a topsy-turvy world … because the laid-back capital of the universe is on fire with film events this month. We in Los Angeles are sweating bullets trying to attend all the film festivals on offer in our city. For film alone, the April line-up is quadruple-booked. arts•meme’s good friend, ...
“King of Comedy” at TCM Film Festival
Mar
30
2010
The role of the (stalked) talk-show host in Martin Scorsese’s brilliant black comedy, “The King of Comedy” (1982), was first envisaged for Johnny Carson. When Carson declined, Scorsese, in a stroke of genius, turned to Jerry Lewis. Lewis is so fantastic in this movie; he skates the narrow edge of powerful, scary, and vulnerable. Really ...
“Worse than War,” Adam Hyman, co-producer
Mar
28
2010
The benign landscape at left is a Rwandan work camp. The workers in the photo are Hutu tribesmen convicted of using machetes to hack to death Tutsi men, women and children in the murderous genocide of 1994. In the spring of 2008, renowned Holocaust scholar Daniel Jonah Goldhagen took a camera crew with him on ...