An omelet with Juliette Binoche: ‘The Taste of Things’
Nov
17
2023
Juliette Binoche is a film goddess. That we know from her 86-plus movie credits in which her luminous presence — think Garbo — is but a point of departure for a vast range of fascinating performances. But did you know she makes a mean omelet? You’ll learn that while watching La Binoche, as Eugénie, an ...
Mini-Review: Wedding bells for PRISCILLA
Nov
3
2023
arts•meme recommends Leave it to filmmaker Sofia Coppola to make a woman’s story with a foil who is half moving target/half stick in the mud. That is Jacob Elordi playing the charmingly dumb, thick on the empathy, maddeningly faithful until he’s not, and meltingly sexy Elvis Presley, in the marvelous new bio-pic, PRISCILLA. Actress Cailee ...
post sponsored by The Soraya
What would Pavlova do? Ask Tiler Peck, soon at The Soraya!
Oct
17
2023
Ed. note: This story by Debra Levine, commissioned and previously published by the Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for the Arts, is reprinted with permission. The similarities are uncanny. By 1913, Anna Pavlova, the eternal exemplar of classical-ballet artistry, having danced with the Russian Imperial Ballet and, briefly, with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, took a handful ...
Anoushka Shankar, virtuoso of ancient sitar, in artsmeme interview for The Soraya 1
Oct
11
2023
Ed. note: This story by Debra Levine, commissioned and previously published by the Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for the Arts, is reprinted with permission. It’s a just-released “mini-album” from a first-rate artist who’s trailing a maximal career. Anoushka Shankar, the acclaimed virtuoso of sitar, music producer, and composer, will wind up a three-week, fifteen-U.S.-city ...
REVIEW: When opposites attract, Bridgewater & Charlap at CAP UCLA
It was a provocative entry to a fall jazz season: singer Dee Dee Bridgewater and pianist Bill Charlap, performing in a duo format at Royce Hall for UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance. Like a pro wrestling match between a pile-driving heel and a gymnast babyface, it was a potential mismatch too tantalizing to ...
REVIEW: Fascinating time-travel with Mark Morris Dance Group at the Joyce Theater 1
numerator, photo: christopher duggan Mark Morris Dance Group was formed in 1980. The Joyce Theater opened doors in 1983. Yet while it has presented dance companies eleven months of the year, the Joyce stage had never hosted a MMDG season until now. So Tuesday’s opening night felt momentous – even historic – as MMDG finally ...
New moves for Misty Copeland
Misty Copeland‘s name is included on American Ballet Theater‘s current roster of principal dancers during its Metropolitan Opera House season (through July 22). But she is not scheduled for any performances, and has not appeared onstage with ABT since before the Covid pandemic interrupted performances in 2020. But Copeland was present nearby at Lincoln Center ...
REVIEW: Private dancer gone public: TINA, the musical, at The Pantages 1
The audience at TINA – THE TINA TURNER MUSICAL was mostly baby boomer. Which was fine by us. Because the audience was rapt. You felt the admiration, the place was oozing with it. With r-e-s-p-e-c-t for a formidable woman of entertainment, a force to be reckoned with: the late, great Tina Turner (1939-2023). The national ...
Adieu to two valiant dancing women of Los Angeles arts: Deborah Lawlor & Flip Manne 2
Fountain Theatre co-founder Deborah Lawlor, who died May 2, 2023, began her career in the ’60s as a dancer, choreographer and actor in New York, where she was a member of the Judson Church/Caffe Cino scene in the Village. She moved to South India in 1968, there pioneering Auroville, a 12-square-mile utopian international community created ...
Double Grammy-awardee Samara Joy to front Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra at The Soraya
Feb
24
2023
Best wishes poured in from all around the world. But a special frisson of joy came from The Soraya Stage in Los Angeles. That’s because Sunday March 26 at 7 pm, the 23-year-old Wonder Woman Samara Joy, @samarajoysings), who (how can we put this calmly?) killed at the GRAMMY® Awards a month ago 🎉 will ...