Herb & Lani Alpert’s generous mid-career funding of meritorious artists
Robert O’Hara, Courtney Bryan, Michael Rakowitz, Lani Hall Alpert, Herb Alpert, Okwui Okpokwasili, and Arthur Jafa, Photo credit: Francesco Da Vinci The Herb Alpert Foundation and California Institute of the Arts awarded the 24th annual Herb Alpert Award in the Arts to five exceptional mid–career artists at a lunch hosted by the Herb Alpert Foundation ...
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre buried in chazzerai at TCM Fest
It’s still going, more or less. The quaint tradition begun by showman Sid Grauman at his Chinese Theatre (which by some miracle, still stands): hands, feet, and autographs plonked into a square of still-wet cement. The photo above was taken from across Hollywood Boulevard looking toward the footprint ceremony for Cicely Tyson at TCM Fest ...
Ain’t there anyone here for love? Ladies, let’s do this! 1
Okay, Messrs Weinstein, Schneiderman, R. Kelly, Richard Meier, Charlie Rose and the rest of you sexual predator power-guys! Formidable glamazon Marilyn Monroe, in Jack Cole’s “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” from GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (1953) wants to share her version of gender politics. A big boomerang of woman power heading your way, back at ...
Pianist Jose Menor’s radiant ‘Goyescas’ to shimmer at Spain-on-the-Pacific party
May
11
2018
A toast of sparkling cava will cap off a sensual event when Jacaranda hosts a Spanish-themed “Goyescas by the Sea” benefit concert Sunday, May 20. The youthful Barcelona-based superstar-pianist, Jose Menor, will grace the program, delivering the complete Goyescas by Enrique Granados, an hour-long solo piano suite inspired by that most Spanish of painters, Francisco ...
Lula & Erwin Washington honored by Dance/USA
May
10
2018
Editor’s note: In a story written for the upcoming conference of Dance/USA in Los Angeles, artsmeme’s Debra Levine profiled a beloved couple of the local dance community, Lula and Erwin Washington, who will receive the Champion Award on 6 June 2018. An excerpt from Debra’s story here: What hath Lula and Erwin wrought? Consider a ...
Female choreographers to receive ‘guidance and feedback’ from ABT 11
May
10
2018
It’s become a meme: “You can’t make this stuff up.” That was my reaction to American Ballet Theatre’s late-in-the-day scramble, yesterday, onto the #metoo bandwagon. The company’s bumbling response to being called out for nearly 30 years of institutional sexism resulting in the marginalization — if not exclusion — of women from the artistic and ...
State of the art: Childish Gambino & dancers, choreographer Sherrie Silver 2
“This is America” — twisted, sideways, partying. Ominous and sour-sounding. Soulful but fearful — as choreographed by Rwanda-born, U.K.-reared Sherrie Silver.
Whatever happened to Robert Aldrich? FEUD’s pattern of distortion 2
Breaking news: On May 6, 2018, the California Supreme Court received a petition to review the California appeals court decision to dismiss Olivia de Havilland’s lawsuit against television network FX and Ryan Murphy which reversed her original legal win that she had grounds to pursue her fight against how she was depicted in FEUD. The ...
Dance-dwellers at the Villa Carlotta
When the call came from Hollywood in January 1941, the choreographer Jack Cole, leading his three-member troupe, repaired to Los Angeles tout de suite. So quickly did Cole dispatch his dancers Anna Austin and Florence Lessing to Calilfornia, that Austin wrote in her memoir, “We did not have time to take makeup off.” We had ...
Farber on Film: the strong cinematic women of TCM Fest 2018
In the year of #MeToo, it seems only appropriate that some of the most resonant films shown at the TCM Classic Film Festival had strong women front and center. Both onscreen and off, 100-year-old Marsha Hunt has long been an inspiring figure. Known for her principled stand against the Hollywood blacklist, which damaged her career, ...