Flourishing Los Angeles experimental dance scene of the ’80s recalled
Aug
16
2018
ed. note: We hear much about the current vigor of Los Angeles dance. A guest writer, the visual artist Steve DeGroodt adds his historic perspective in this essay contributed to the blog. There is a vibrancy and presence that has been missing in the world of dance in Los Angeles for some time. What once ...
Message from Shepard: “Thanks for caring about climate change”
Aug
15
2018
Obey Fire Sale. 18 x 24 inches. Screen print on cream Speckle Tone paper. Signed by Shepard Fairey. Numbered edition of 550. $55. Available Thursday, August 16, 10 am (PST) on ObeyGiant.com in Store under Prints. Limit 1 per person/household. Artist’s Statement My “Obey” print is a comment on the challenges any individual faces pushing ...
The valleys are alive with the sound of gibberish, courtesy of artist Paul McCarthy
Maria, pictured above and played by Julie Andrews in the syrupy Hollywood movie-musical, The Sound of Music (1965), delivers her iconic hilltop anthem, but in a bizarro version created by visual artist Paul McCarthy, her scale runs do ti la so fa mi re do. McCarthy created cisuM fo dnuoS ehT / The Sound of ...
post sponsored by Ford Theatres
Ford Theatre’s magical August dance-weekend adds intimacy
Unicorns and moonbeams! That magical stuff will spool at the Ford Amphitheatre when the beloved outdoor stage winds toward summer’s-end 2018. Lending unusual piquancy in a special dance-weekend are full-evening works by up-and-coming choreographers: Marjani Forté-Saunders (Aug 24, 25) and Stephanie Zaletel (Aug 26 only). To accommodate the intimate, experimental nature of these dance performances, ...
Makarova/Godunov triumph in molasses-tempoed Don Q pas de deux 1
Aug
6
2018
Both are Russian-born-and-trained sensations: she of the Kirov, he of the Bolshoi. Both were Soviet defectors. I never saw him dance in person, but he fascinates me. I saw her dance many times, with American Ballet Theatre. I worship her. Note his one-armed lift (of her) at 0:53. Note her turns — every one of ...
Bob Fosse, dancer, at UCLA Film & Television Archive
We’re all familiar with Bob Fosse, choreographer, and Bob Fosse, film director, right? And if we aren’t, UCLA Film & Television Archive is giving us a great opportunity to catch up as it celebrates a key influencer of modern cinema in “Fosse, Fosse, Fosse!” Fosse was a rarity … he advanced from dancer to choreographer ...
Osipova in premiere as Isadora Duncan at Segerstrom
How will the California-born Isadora Duncan be remembered 50 years from now? As the woman whose barefoot, Greek-vase inspired abandon birthed the modern dance movement? Or for her shocking, free-love lifestyle in Europe and Russia and early tragic death – decapitated by scarf while riding in a Bugatti sports car? To the uninitiated, and by ...
Tarantino’s dream: the Pussycat meets the Bookshop 2
Women around the world are beside themselves with joy to see movie director Quentin Tarantino bring back the sleaze old days of the late sixties, when XXX-rated porn movies spooled at the bygone Pussycat Theatre. Admittedly, even I miss rolling by this colorful (ahem, it was the color purple) ediface of screaming architecture on the ...
Pavilion ‘Levitt-ates’ our city, says Mayor Eric Garcetti
I love the Levitt Pavilion Los Angeles. But don’t listen to me. Listen to Mayor Garcetti, who calls it a “spark” and a “community asset” whose “vitality is a model of urban revitalization.” According to Garcetti, “We can have all the best clean-up in the world, but if there’s nothing in between that keeps people ...
‘Monsters’ invade Burbank!
Aug
2
2018
It’s hardly a new way of moving; it’s been around for, what, thirty years? But what’s new about hip-hop is that it has become a teachable, replicable, and codified dance technique. And it holds an electric grip, especially, on young aspiring commercial dancers for whom it is the fresh, evolving, go-to dance language. I enjoy ...