Al Hirschfeld draws a dancin’ man

Dance · Theater · Visual arts
Everyone knows that arts journalist Al Hirschfeld, whose theatrical caricatures accompanied Sunday New York Times feature articles about Broadway openings, was a genius. But The Line King‘s rendering of Bob Fosse in 1978, on the occasion of the opening of his no-book, all-dance musical Dancin’, got my attention. I can’t stop looking at … … ...

Searching for Nina(s), with coffee & Al Hirschfeld

Theater · Visual arts
I don’t quite agree with the exhibition title that calls ‘looking for Ninas’ “a “national insanity.” Donald Trump has a lock on that. But apparently that was how the late great caricaturist/arts journalist Al Hirschfeld, whose charming shtick of inserting his daughter’s name into his cartoons in the Sunday New York Times Arts & Leisure ...

Gorgeous! Ruth St. Denis headdress in Denishawn costume show 2

Dance · Fashion
The headdress from Ruth St. Denis’s 1919 Chinese-inspired “Kuan Yin,” with buttons, feathers and artificial pearls. credit David Dashiell for the New York Times. Dance writer Gia Kourlas writes in the New York Times about an exhibit of 30  costumes worn by Denishawn dancers under the aegis of Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. The ...

Willdabeast to NYT: ‘I’m a beast no matter what’ 1

Dance
[excerpted] “People would tell me, you don’t look the way dancers need to look. You’re not tall enough, you’re darker skinned. It’s gonna be hard for you to get eye-candy jobs or Disney jobs.” His response: to bring together “the misfits of the industry,” he said, “and be the example — that I’m a beast ...

Audience nods off at performance

Theater
In a brilliant illustration of a New York Times story, “Inside the Brutal World of Comedy Open Mikes,” photographer Christian Hansen captures a less-than-scintillated audience of three. The occasion was an ‘open mike’ session at a comedy club. Guys, we know the feeling!