New York City Ballet on your teevee, by way of Madrid
Once upon a time, USA television viewers could take for granted that the nation’s leading dance companies be showcased on television, thanks to the seminal Dance in America series on PBS. It was great while it lasted, but eventually dance programming became a rarity on PBS. Their Great Performances series broadcasts ten or more of ...
Oh, to be as ‘Driven’ as Tony Pearson
Oct
17
2023
I very much enjoyed Driven: The Tony Pearson Story, a documentary that is the labor of love of its director Andrew Menjivar. It details the life and career of legendary bodybuilder Tony Pearson, a product of several seminal training gyms up to and including Venice’s Muscle Beach and Gold’s Gym, where, ahem, I am a new member~! ...
post sponsored by The Soraya
What would Pavlova do? Ask Tiler Peck, soon at The Soraya!
Oct
17
2023
Ed. note: This story by Debra Levine, commissioned and previously published by the Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for the Arts, is reprinted with permission. The similarities are uncanny. By 1913, Anna Pavlova, the eternal exemplar of classical-ballet artistry, having danced with the Russian Imperial Ballet and, briefly, with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, took a handful ...
Trio of ‘Priscilla’ female creatives take time-out from The King at movie opening
Last night at the Academy Museum’s Ted Mann Theater, film distributor A24 hosted the Los Angeles premiere screening of Priscilla, starring Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi. Writer/director Sofia Coppola and executive producer Priscilla Presley were in attendance. The plot of the movie, written and directed by Sofia Coppola, goes like this: When teenage Priscilla Beaulieu ...
REVIEW: Hanging out with ‘The Holdovers’
“There are certain movies that you hang out with the characters so much that they actually become your friends. Those movies are usually quite long, because it actually takes that long of a time to get past a movie character where you actually feel that you know the person and you like them.” That now-famous ...
The Stone who stopped rolling: Nick Broomfield doc about Brian Jones
As a schoolboy aged 14, Nick Broomfield, later a British filmmaker and award-winning documentarian, met Brian Jones, by chance, on a train. Jones was at the height of his success. Six years later he would be dead. Nick Broomfield’s new documentary THE STONES & BRIAN JONES explores the legacy of Brian Jones, who, in this ...
Anoushka Shankar, virtuoso of ancient sitar, in artsmeme interview for The Soraya 1
Oct
11
2023
Ed. note: This story by Debra Levine, commissioned and previously published by the Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for the Arts, is reprinted with permission. It’s a just-released “mini-album” from a first-rate artist who’s trailing a maximal career. Anoushka Shankar, the acclaimed virtuoso of sitar, music producer, and composer, will wind up a three-week, fifteen-U.S.-city ...
Imani Winds to bring breezy, jazzy, dancey woodwind sound to 92nd St ‘Y’
Oct
10
2023
In a chamber music program that can only be described as scintillating, the trailblazing wind-instrument quintet, Imani Winds, will make their first 92NY appearance with acclaimed pianist Terrence Wilson in a program conceived around rhythm and dance. Repertoire includes Paquito D’Rivera’s take on the Venezuelan joropo, Fleur de Cayenne, Imani hornist Jeff Scott’s arrangement of ...
Karel Zeman’s ‘painted cinema’: wondrous, playful, intriguing films @ The Panorama
Oct
2
2023
The Stolen Airship (1966) Live action, special effects, painted backdrops, puppets and animation are all ingeniously combined in the fantastic films of Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman. 50 years after the earliest days of cinema, Zeman returned to the magical techniques of Georges Mélies to create films of unmatched beauty. Now, courtesy of the Velaslavasay Panorama, ...
German Currents Film Festival a glimpse into latest & best European cinema
Sep
25
2023
We are fans and supporters of the Goethe-Institut’s spectrum of wonderful German/American cultural activities in Los Angeles, but since it’s Los Angeles we especially love the movies. That’s why we so anticipate a fun weekend at the annual German Currents Film Festival, lively ads for which you see posted on artsmeme now. Click on ’em ...