post sponsored by Lisa Smith Wengler Center for the Arts
Last call: Jessica Lang Dance @ Pepperdine
Apr
29
2019
Yes, it’s sad. It’s a sad moment. The closure of a boutique dance company, a precious organism, is depressing especially if it is for just one reason: it’s too hard to keep it going. That is the difficult decision choreographer Jessica Lang reached after seven years running her well-respected Jessica Lang Dance (JDL). jessica lang, ...
post sponsored by Segerstrom Center for the Arts
Dorrance Dance to fill Segerstrom Hall with tap funk & noise
Apr
29
2019
Dorrance Dance: “ETM: Double Down” at Segerstrom Center May 3, 2019photo by Christopher Duggan It’s all based on a single idea, a profound one; it’s the notion that tap dancers are also musicians. And upon that premise the acclaimed tap dancer/choreographer Michelle Dorrance is prepared to ‘double down.’ She’ll aptly illustrate her point while dancing ...
One man’s ‘Bliss’ … @ Fluxus Fest
Apr
25
2019
… is this woman’s The Marriage of Figaro. More to the point, focus on the final few minutes of Mozart’s sublime operatic score. Take that rapture and loop it for twelve hours – a Fluxus-Festival endurance feat — and you have Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson‘s Mozart madness starting at noon, at REDCAT, on May 25. ...
Orpheus-themed event blends music, poetry, film @ The Edye
Black Orpheus (1959) dir Marcel Camus The tragic love of Orpheus for Eurydice has inspired poets, artists, and musicians—among them Rainer Maria Rilke, Christophe Willibald Gluck, and in our own time choreographer Mark Morris and composer Philip Glass, whose 1993 Orphee Suite was inspired by Jean Cocteau’s 1950 film. An interesting event exploring the Orpheus ...
A gift to Gwen from Jack
FOSSE VERDON — Michelle Williams as Gwen Verdoncredit Eric Liebowitz/FX Networks Ed. note: Excerpted from a story published today in DANCE Magazine: You can see them in “Fosse/Verdon” episode one. Michelle Williams, playing Gwen Verdon, wears them with a cool, retro, forest-green jumpsuit. Tucked beneath a mop top of tousled Gwen Verdon locks, Williams sports ...
It’s Jack Cole time Tuesday on FX’s ‘Fosse/Verdon’
Actor Christopher Tocco, above, plays Jack Cole in a backstage scene with the young Gwen Verdon in FX’s blockbuster eight-episode docu-drama, “Fosse/Verdon.” “Fosse/Verdon”‘s backstage scene between Verdon and her mentor Jack Cole is preceded by a Jack Cole jazz number vividly choreographed by “Hamilton” choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler, who is a co-producer of this series. Out with ...
Silent Movie Theatre before/after #metoo accusation
The disbanding of The Cinefamily at the end of December 2017 began with accusations of sexual predator behavior. It led to the unraveling of The Cinefamily’s clearly vulnerable organization which, despite miscreant behavior, managed to project movies onto the screen of the former Silent Movie Theater. The frothy group of followers, both guys and gals, ...
Clippings tour: ‘Dirty Dancing,’ original version 1
42nd Street (1933) choreography by Busby Berkeley This month’s edition of “Dirty Dancing: The Original” dates to the 1930s. If you think the McCarthy era saw the birth of the Hollywood black list you got that wrong. A work ‘lock-out’ took place during the Depression when chorus girls did not (ahem) ‘put out’ — and ...
The struggle to love, @ TCM Fest 2019
Apr
15
2019
HOLLYWOOD, CA – APRIL 11: Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal attend the 30th Anniversary screening of “When Harry Met Sally” at the 2019 10th Annual TCM Classic Film Festival on April 11, 2019. (Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for TCM) There was a happy feeling when hordes of classic film fans descended upon Hollywood Boulevard ...
Jack Cole on the Beeb 2
Apr
13
2019
Jack Cole, Chita Rivera, Beale Street Blues It’s correct. The attention given, this past week, to the choreographer Jack Cole at the very moment of the debut of the Fosse/Verdon mini-series on FX. It’s correct because Verdon, a miraculous, one-off entertainer, was nearly a creation of Cole’s. And it’s correct because, basically: no Jack Cole, ...