Jazz review: Chilly night at the Ford warmed by ‘Spring Quartet’

Music
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Spring Quartet: DeJohnette, Lovano, Spalding, Genovese For a jazz super group, the Spring Quartet is something of a phantom. Most Angeleno jazz fans had never heard of the quartet, but they all know the names of saxophonist Joe Lovano, drummer Jack DeJohnette, bassist Esperanza Spalding and pianist Leo Genovese. When the group performed at the ...

REVIEW: Heidi Duckler Dance’s fully ‘Loaded’ dock-dance at the Ford

Dance · Reviews
A distant, pulsing whir of ambient music accompanies the sight of a peculiar, tall figure as he rambles toward us. We spy him (or is it a she?) through the half-closed gate (or it a gate ‘half-open’?) at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre’s loading dock. This creature, dressed in unisex coveralls like a hip garbage ...

Ford Theatre’s magical August dance-weekend adds intimacy

Architecture & Design · Dance
Unicorns and moonbeams! That magical stuff will spool at the Ford Amphitheatre when the beloved outdoor stage winds toward summer’s-end 2018. Lending unusual piquancy in a special dance-weekend are full-evening works by up-and-coming choreographers: Marjani Forté-Saunders (Aug 24, 25) and Stephanie Zaletel (Aug 26 only). To accommodate the intimate, experimental nature of these dance performances, ...

Wild rhythms of Japan & India to tumble from Ford Amphitheatre stage

Dance · Music
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Ask the average American theater-goer or music listener to describe Japanese taiko drumming and you’ll probably hear a description something like this: solemn men in loin cloths and sweat bands who beat oversized drums in unison — loudly and interminably. Brian Yamami has spent his last 18 years trying to change that perception. He’s a ...

Flamenco artist Jesus Carmona to punish new Ford floorboards Sept 8

Dance
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A great flamenco show is an eyeful. But it’s also about sound—live music, thrilling singers, spontaneous shouts and claps, and scintillating footwork called zapateado. Making that zapateado clatter with further fury at the upcoming performance by Jesús Carmona will be the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre’s new floor. “We wanted a floor that would resonate for ...

REVIEW: Savion Glover sizzling at the Ford 2

Dance · Music · Reviews
It is a Dance Criticism 401 assignment describing Savion Glover in performance — savagely fit, in top form, at his most forthcoming. Words fall short. Yet that is what we had at Saturday’s festive season-opener of the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre. The refurbished Ford’s long commitment to dance, season after season presenting local and visiting ...

Savion Glover vs. Ford Amphitheatre soundwall

Architecture & Design
A sound-worthy evening awaits us Saturday as the beloved John Anson Ford Amphitheatre is poised and ready for its festive inaugural season-opening night, a re-opening after a major retrofit. A noisy tumult normally accompanies an event at the Ford, which is set in a natural hollow of the Cahuenga Pass, but faces off with a ...

It’s Savion time … at the spanking new Ford Amphitheatre

Dance
Saturday night there’s only one place to be. That’s at the much loved, super historic John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, fully renovated after its multi-phase expansion. We’ve been clued in that the Ford’s $75 million re-do is nothing less than “gorgeous.” A real stunning gift to our little hamlet of Los Angeles. Breaking in the stage ...

Walking with Trane and Urban Bush Women … at the Ford

Dance
The “dance voices” of strong women will make a clarion call Saturday evening at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre in a double pairing of dance companies offering not just glitzy surface but real content, story, mythology in a thoughtful program of contemporary dance. The evening’s main offering is the 30-year-old Urban Bush Women, straight outta ...

Ford Amphitheatre’s new summer season, a cause to rejoice

Architecture & Design
Only in Los Angeles, on the grapevine of the Hollywood Freeway as it cuts a swathe from city to Valley, would a “summer season” extend through October 15. It happens, outdoors, at L.A.’s annual multicultural arts festival — the beloved and historic John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, now on the cusp of reopening after a two-year ...