Let’s get this party started! Memphis jookin’ with Lil Buck at Carpenter Center in Long Beach

Dance
As a dance writer and historian, I’m completely fascinated — and on board — with the seemingly inexhaustible supply of witty, innovative new dance forms that arise from the streets of our society. A crash course in one such form will be on tap at the Carpenter Center in Long Beach, with the entertaining showcase, ...

Gregory Hines forever

Dance · Film
The United States Postal Service, a valued part of our Federal government, has honored a great American dancer by issuing its 42nd stamp in the Black Heritage series featuring an image of Gregory Hines (1946–2003). Hines was a monster-contributor to the dance field. Nominated for Tony Awards in the 1970s for three Broadway musicals — ...

Not just talkin’ tap, dancing it too @ ALOUD

Dance · Film · Reviews
A wonderful learn-and-have-fun program heading our way after the New Year, as Central Library’s cozy Mark Taper Auditorium will host a special book talk sprung to life. New York Times dance critic Brian Seibert will converse with his Los Angeles cohort, Sasha Anawalt, about his new book, “What the Eye Hears, A History of American ...

Reading tap 1

Dance · Film · Ideas & Opinion · Reviews
by 
Dancing, like writing, is a craft before it is an art. Rare is the professional who excels at both; the thousands of hours of practice necessary to make an artist rarely allow time for rigorous training in another genre. Somewhere between the craft and the art, though, lie scholarship and criticism, and the world is ...