‘Honey, I’m home!’: the movie mating-game of Nicole Kidman
Apr
13
2022
Seriously. What’s a woman to do? She tried hard, so very hard. She tried for her kids and she tried for herself — because she loved the guy. But Ricky Ricardo’s serial womanizing accrued to such a degree that it caused a rupture in Lucy & Desi’s fine romance. This story is told in a ...
Lustful doings: Barcelona Flamenco Ballet @ The Alex
Suspense, intrigue, sex, scandal, love. That sounds like a pretty typical Saturday night in Glendale, California. But the town’s lustful doings will notch up to a new level Saturday April 16, when the historic Alex Theatre presents Luxurîa (“Lust”), a flamenco dance-theater sensation from Spain’s internationally renowned Barcelona Flamenco Ballet. Barcelona Flamenco Ballet artistic directors, ...
Ballet Monte-Carlo’s good-looking ‘Romeo & Juliet, soon at Segerstrom
Mar
29
2022
Choreographer Jean-Christophe Maillot‘s Roméo et Juliette (1996) created for Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo in 1996 may not be a new production, but boy does it look swankily danced, and designed, by some stunning dancers in these photos. So we’re going. Maillot has been artistic director of the company since 1993. The ballet is staged to ...
‘Long live Sondheim,’ pianist Anthony de Mare soon to pronounce at Royce
Mar
25
2022
It sounds so intriguing doesn’t it? In 2007, Anthony de Mare, a champion of contemporary music and devotee of the musical theater genius of composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021) embarked on a project that has proven enduring. His big idea was to commission leading composers in jazz, film, theater and classical music, and the pop world, ...
Being alive, with Special Oscar honoree Liv Ullmann
Mar
25
2022
She speaks hesitantly; listening, you wonder if there is a problem, perhaps a cognitive disorder. She meanders, and seems vague and scattered. But if you take the time, just eight minutes, to experience this beautiful set of remarks delivered by actress Liv Ullmann, on the weekend she is receiving a Special Oscar at the Awards ...
Death of a dancer: Kenneth Rinker 1
ed. note: artsmeme wishes to especially thank dance writer Susan Reiter for her humanity in contributing this appreciation of the marvelous modern dancer/choreographer Ken Rinker. You may experience a taste of Kenneth in motion in this film’ed excerpt from “The Bix Pieces.” On a September evening in 1972, I had a dance epiphany that has ...
REVIEW: Karole Armitage’s ‘A Pandemic Notebook’ at New York Live Arts
photo: julieta cervantes There they were, two luminaries of the 1980s NYC dance scene, facing us 40 years later, Karole Armitage and Jock Soto, in simple black and grey outfits. Armitage got everyone’s attention with Drastic Classicism (1981), a fierce, high-gloss, visually and sonically arresting work that shook up ballet conventions with outrageous costuming and ...
Dance memories stored in a jewelry bag, a gift from Yuriko
Mar
16
2022
A short time after Paul Taylor Dance Company founding member Sharon Kinney left Taylor’s company and had her first child, a son, she got a call for work. Calling was Yuriko (1920-2022), the great, fleeting exponent, and leading light, of Martha Graham Dance Company. It was the late sixties, and the Japanese-American dancer, transitioning from ...
Martha Graham’s ode to nature, ‘Canticle,’ re-imagined for 21st-C
jacob larsen, so young an, martha graham ‘moon’ ed. note: This story by dance critic Debra Levine, commissioned and published by the Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for the Arts, is reprinted with permission. When Martha Graham premiered a new, full-company work with a poetic title, “Canticle for Innocent Comedians,” it was the Spring of ...
Waaaah Ricky, our movie’s terrible! 1
Mar
4
2022
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, ...