Hocus-pocus, here comes the circus!

Theater · Visual arts
Just to prove that Washington D.C. does not have the lock on staging circuses, we’ve got a really cool one coming our way in Los Angeles. It’s a revival, by The Bob Baker Marionette Theater, of The Circus, a Bob Baker original production that has not been seen in nearly 40 years. The Circus, originally ...

Gray Davis’s grandest battement

Dance
“I never realized how high it was,” he said. “Luckily, I’m a ballet dancer, so I swung my leg up.” That’s what American Ballet Theatre dancer Gray Davis, 31, told the New York Times in describing how he got himself out of the grisly pit of the subway track at Broadway and 72nd Street station. ...

Who was Olga Spessivtseva?

Dance
Olga Spessivtseva (1895 – 1991) was the quintessence of a Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet romantic ballerina whom George Balanchine famously called “a beautiful diamond, cool, distant, and perfect.” The legendary Russian ballerina, who died in the United States, is the subject of choreographer Boris Eifman’s full-evening work, Red Giselle, coming soon to Segerstrom Center for the Arts. ...

‘Last Remaining Seats’ super-good throughout June

Film
Glancing through the roster of the Last Remaining Seats (LRC) for the summer of seventeen, I was struck by a better-than-usual selection of flickers and programs. The first three offerings, all in the first half of June, beg attention. The massively popular summer screening series (ahem, hosting the LRS screening of West Side Story in ...

Chatting with Michael Govan about ‘Moholy-Nagy: Future Present’

Visual arts
It was nice watching the at-home manner in which LACMA CEO Michael Govan toured the cascading galleries of “Moholy-Nagy: Future Present” during the impressive show’s opening week in February. The highly recommended exhibition of 250 works by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, a visual master much known for photography and filmmaking, will close on June 18. Sure, the ...

Andrea Martin, beautiful & funny, in support of Armenian women in need 2

Reviews · Theater
We so enjoyed last night’s cabaret-style performance by actress Andrea Martin, accompanied by her versatile sidekick (every woman needs one) Seth Rudetsky. The evening-length fundraiser for the Armenian International Women’s Association took place at North Hollywood’s show-bizzy El Portal Theater. Paying respect to her Armenian family background, the multiple Emmy Award-winning and two-time Tony Award-winning ...

arts·meme at nine, an industrious arts builder 4

Ideas & Opinion
Happy birthday dear arts·meme, happy birthday to you~! On May 24, 2008, we launched your favorite arts blog. We’ve been assiduously building ever since. Brick by brick, story by story, we have accrued a steady pile of nearly 2,000 blog posts. It’s all interwoven, as we like to feature artistic mash-ups, mostly in dance and ...

Looks fascinating: “Les Blancs” by Lorraine Hansberry @ Rogue Machine

Theater
Lorraine Hansberry’s final work, completed just before her death in 1965, Les Blancs, depicts the waning days of colonialism. Set in a time frame crossing into the 20th century, it reveals the impossible moral choices faced by individuals who must reconcile personal happiness with idealism. It is rich with music and dance and set in ...

Not a ‘witch hunt,’ Mr. Trump, decries daughter of John Garfield

Film · Ideas & Opinion
Mr. Trump, words matter. If not to you, then to the rest of us. Trump’s repeated flinging of the loaded expression ‘witch hunt’ (yet again this morning, via Twitter) in a moment of his wounded narcissism strikes a deep, deep chord. It brings painful memories of a shameful chapter of American history. It brings rage ...

Ella at 100: virtuosity, joy and swing 5

Music
by 
arts·meme jazz critic Kirk Silsbee excerpts his liner notes to the new four-CD set, Ella Fitzgerald: 100 Songs For a Centennial (Verve 2016-00957) At first blush, one hundred songs from any artist seem like overkill. In the case of Ella Fitzgerald (1917-1996), whose recordings number in the thousands, one hundred is just about enough to ...