Dear, departed Donald McKayle
Apr
9
2018
Touching tribute photos of the beloved DONALD MCKAYLE (1930 – 2018), legendary dancer, choreographer, director and consummate teacher and mentor who perished aged 87 after a lengthy illness, April 7, 2018 — in Irvine, California.
Michael Jackson could only spin to the left, said Donald McKayle
Chatting in 2011 with the great Tony Award-winning choreographer Donald McKayle (Raisin, Sophisticated Ladies, Dr. Jazz), who passed away just last week, McKayle let drop that he had worked with Michael Jackson on two occasions. And he remembered one funny detail. “He taught himself to dance,” said McKayle. “He could spin only to the left.” ...
Feathers, masks, veils: bodies transfigured by Charlie Le Mindu
Charlie Le Mindu‘s NOIR is an exhibition of raw sculptures; through literal extensions of his existing work with the human form, he explores the competing forces that drive our daily lives and relationships. Le Mindu will present a series of performances on the exhibit’s opening night demonstrating his provocative visual imagination, in which the gendered ...
Spirited actress/director Ida Lupino showcased @ UCLA Film Archive
Apr
4
2018
This one is for Kelly Anne Graml, the longtime publicist at UCLA Film & Television Archive who has been a joy to work with and who will retire from the Archive soon. * * * Calling all me-too’ers and enough-is-enough’ers! Now’s the time to march across Wilshire Boulevard and get-thee to a round-up of films ...
Spend Friday the 13th with ‘Rosemary’s Baby,’ now 50 years old
Apr
3
2018
To provide shivers and thrills on Friday the 13th, Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 50th anniversary screening of one of the most terrifying movies of all time, Rosemary’s Baby. Ira Levin’s ingenious best-selling novel imagined a witches’ coven hiding in plain sight in contemporary Manhattan and hatching a plot to bring ...
Liberty Hill Foundation to honor L.A. arts angel Liz Levitt Hirsch
Apr
2
2018
“Attention must be paid!” says Jane Jelenko, philanthropist, activist, writer, longtime friend to Elizabeth Levitt Hirsh, and co-chairperson of the upcoming Upton Sinclair Awards Dinner, April 19, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, where Levitt Hirsch will be honored with a Founders Award. “I’ve known Liz for nearly thirty years. I’ve watched her arts activism from ...
A smoking dance number! ‘Two Cigarettes in the Dark’
It was so much fun to receive this dance number (above) from our friend the pianist/performer Peter Mintun, a very niche expert in old-tyme American popular music — the stuff of cafe society. The lead tap dancer (unidentified) and chorines deliver performances that can best be described as ‘smoking.’ “Two Cigarettes in the Dark,” by ...
From South Africa, Dada Masilo’s re-envisioned ‘Giselle’ @ The Wallis
She’s messed with Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, and Carmen. Now comes Giselle. ‘Messed with’ is perhaps a strong term, but South Africa’s Dada Masilo is among a small group of choreographers – notably Matthew Bourne, Akram Khan, Boris Eifman and Mats Ek – with the guts to turn a hallowed narrative ballet into something ...
Denkeschoen: Jeremy Denk in April concert @ the Wallis
Mar
28
2018
Pleased to see that Jeremy Denk, MacArthur ‘Genius’ and Avery Fisher Prize winner, will soon concertize in the intimate Bram Goldsmith Theater of The Wallis in Beverly Hills. A youthful and hugely versatile-and-robust piano stylist, Denk, whom Paul Crewes, artistic director of The Wallis, singles out as, “one of America’s foremost pianists,” will deliver a ...
A house tinged by antisemitism: Denishawn 2
Mar
24
2018
Excerpted from: Humphrey, Doris, “Doris Humphrey: An Artist First,” an autobiography edited and completed by Selma Jeanne Cohen (Wesleyan University Press, Middletown CT), 1972, pp 61-62. The summer of 1928 Charles [Weidman] and I were teaching the classes at the Carnegie Hall studio, while Pauline [Lawrence] played piano. The students were stimulated by our enthusiasm ...