Los Angeles, California, home to two choreographer-goddesses

Dance · Reviews
Macaela Taylor, Danielle Agami It’s exciting. For awhile there, things were looking bad. We seemed to be losing the female voice in the contemporary dance space, as men, holding the reins of most operating companies, naturally meted out sparse commissions and jobs to guy-pals. Female dance leaders, critics and scholars sounded the alarm. Foundations, universities, ...

REVIEW: Simmering with Ate9 dance company at The Wallis

Dance · Music · Reviews
“Let it simmer.” With those words, the music savant Michael Jackson directed his band in This Is It, a documentary capturing his final, unrealized rock concert. MJ’s instrux came to my mind while watching the dance splendor choreographer Danielle Agami unveiled at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts this weekend. The Israeli-born Los ...

Weather report: It’s raining female artists in Los Angeles

Dance
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova in live performance with PussyRiot at The Broad Stage, photo by Ben Gibbs We’ve had some crazy tumultuous storms lately in Los Angeles, a weather pattern augured to continue as women are seizing the stages of the city’s performing arts centers. For a mighty wind of female fabulousness — and fury — has ...

Review: Under pink clouds, Music Center’s “Moves After Dark”

Dance · Reviews
by 
Dance critic Gillian Anne Renault contributes this review to arts·meme: As grey clouds turned pink Monday evening and a cool breeze dimpled the Mark Taper Forum pool, a powerful alto voice quieted the crowd for Moves After Dark, The Music Center’s inaugural, site-specific, mainly outdoor dance concert. The ambitious evening, well executed, proved a worthy ...

‘ghosts’ waft cooly amidst Clare Graham curios

Dance · Visual arts
The weather was dark and dismal last Sunday evening for the opening of Stephanie Zaletel‘s spooky site-specific “ghosts,” a dance performance that took place in one of L.A.’s most happening art lofts. While the rain fell on York Avenue in Highland Park, a nice crowd found cozy respite by cramming into moryork gallery’s many nooks ...

Review: Ate9 Dance & Fleck a pithy pairing @ REDCAT

Dance · Reviews · Theater
“It’s the second night of the third week of the 11th year of the New Original Works festival,” announced Mark Murphy, executive director of REDCAT performance space Friday night in a pre-show greeting of his audience. Surveying the full house of folk who track with emerging performance art, Murphy’s flickering smile seemed to convey, “But ...

Danielle Agami, dancer 1

Dance
Gobs of personal courage and febrile movement invention were on display in her choreography, last night, in “Mouth to Mouth” for Ate9 dANCEcOMPANY at the Los Angeles Theatre Center. But my biggest fascination — and pleasure — came from a close-up look at Israeli-born-and-trained Danielle Agami as a dancer. Coiling amidst her wonderful “Ate9” gang ...

Review: Danielle Agami’s “EXHIBITa” @ Celebrate Dance 2

Dance · Reviews
Think of a Robert Crumb cartoon strip — in all its gnarly, grotesque glory. That roughly equates to watching the weird and wonderful foot-parade choreographer Danielle Agami sent across the Alex Theatre stage last night at the ninth annual “Celebrate Dance.” Agami’s “EXHIBITa,” chock-filled with witty movement invention in its Los Angeles premiere, offered the ...

Opera occupies Union Station 1

Architecture & Design · Music · Reviews · Theater
The overture ended, a set of heavy double doors opened, and into Union Station spilled the opera audience. As the group dispersed, some displayed trepidation in their quest for the singers heard in their headsets. Others eschewed the life-sized version of Where’s Waldo: One couple made a beeline for the bar; ordering a bottle of ...