arts·meme at nine, an industrious arts builder 4
May
24
2017
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
May
24
2017
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
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
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 ...
Let choreographer Laura Karlin decorate your home
May
16
2017
I very much enjoyed Invertigo Dance Theatre founder/choreographer Laura Karlin‘s “Interior Design,” a high point of the vigorous opening night of the Los Angeles Dance Festival last weekend. Hosted by director Deborah Brockus at the cozy Theatre Raymond Kabbaz, this year’s festival offered a parade of Los Angeles dance companies the opportunity to display their ...
Kim Basinger, Guy Pearce pay tribute to ‘L.A. Confidential’ director Curtis Hanson
May
10
2017
”He was my friend. I loved the man,” said actress Kim Basinger of film director Curtis Hanson, who died tragically at a too-young age in September 2016. Basinger’s two films for Hanson included L.A. CONFIDENTIAL (1997) and 8 MILE (2002). The super slender blonde, a down-home stunner, sparkled alongside co-star Guy Pearce in a joint ...
‘Starring Europe’ top film picks: from France, from Italy
May
10
2017
Well, they all look so good, don’t they? The fourth annual European film festival in Los Angeles, Starring Europe: New Films from the EU, kicked off with a swinging red carpet/gala reception in the peerless courtyard of Hollywood’s Egyptian Theatre last night. Remarks prior to the opening-night feature, MELLOW MUD, a Latvian film, indicate that ...
Opens tonight! STARRING EUROPE filmfest
May
9
2017
Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland and Spain. Wouldn’t you just love to get on a slow boat and visit them all? Boat trip perhaps not necessary. Nor a flight ticket. Starting tonight, Tuesday May 9 and running through May 15, the American Cinematheque will host ...
Review: Kyle Abraham’s superlative A.I.M. @ The Broad Stage
Only a handful of contemporary choreographers could pull off an evening of the magnitude and excellence that Kyle Abraham did last night, together with his 8-member dance company, Abraham.in.Motion, at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica. For this type of presentation, that featuring the voice of a single choreographer, Kyle is now kyng. He’s keeping ...
California dreamin’ gone haywire
May
5
2017
“I’m definitely playing with the juxtaposition of art and garbage,” says artist Jeff Gillette of his upcoming exhibit at Gregorio Escalante gallery. “As a pessimist observing what’s happening in the world right now, I’m posing questions, ‘What is any of this worth?’ and ‘How do we choose what and how we ascribe worth to things?’ ...