Lewitzky doc to open Dance Camera West at Barnsdall Art Park
I was delighted to learn that the annual DANCE CAMERA WEST festival will take place this year, the weekend of January 19, in the cozy underground theater of Barnsdall Art Park, one of the truly happy places of our fair city. The urban-rustic setting fits well with the California theme of the Festival’s opening film, ...
Carmen de Lavallade remembers Rudi Gernreich, Lester Horton dancer
artsmeme’s exclusive interview with the peerless modern dancer Rudi Gernreich with Peggy Moffitt modeling the “Marlene Dietrich”pantsuit, 1964.Photograph © William Claxton, LLC, courtesy of Demont Photo Management & Fahey/Klein Gallery Los Angeles, with permission of the Rudi Gernreich trademark. Rudi Gernreich papers (Collection 1702). Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA. The establishment, ...
Time to reassess Lewitzky? 1
Jul
1
2019
photo: frances chee That was my takeaway after viewing Luminario Ballet‘s wonderful performance, Sunday June 23 at the Skirball Cultural Center, of two absorbing works by choreographer Bella Lewitzky. Pictured are excerpts from “Inscape” (1976). The work is driven by its marvelous costumes — stretch “duotards” designed by Rudi Gernreich, who, prior to his vigorous ...
Rudi Gernreich stunner: ‘The Swan’ for Lewitzky Dance in 1976
We’re just starting to dig into the rich content of “Fearless Fashion: Rudi Gernreich,” the exhibition now up and running at the Skirball Cultural Center, with its stimulating mix of design, gender, fine art, and social issues. All those elements came crashing together, in a sixties kind of way, in the work of the adventurous ...
Spend quality time with Bert & Ernie
In 2011, when our society was slightly more playful mood, a petition circulated to cajole the two besties, Bert & Ernie, from the closet, and marry ’em right on Sesame Street. Who knew that five years later we would elect an actual prime-time puppet to the presidency? But to take a break from all of ...
Dissent through dance! Learn 15 new ways to talk to Donald Trump
Apr
19
2017
Here’s how to tell Donald Trump what you think — put your body to it. Ideas of dissent vary in different contexts, according to workshop leader Ananya Chatterjea. A native of Kolkata, India, she also is a professor of theatre arts and dance at the University of Minnesota. Chatterjea envisions her work in the field ...
REVIEW: Lionel Popkin’s ‘Inflatable Trio’ at the Skirball 1
Do you sense that things are changing in ways that make you uneasy? That even our most familiar modes of operating—what political pundits call “norms,” for example public civility—are in upheaval? Choreographer Lionel Popkin has made a dance about this. His charming and successful “Inflatable Trio,” a fun hour-long pageant for three dancers, premiered at ...
Breathy new work by Lionel Popkin soon at Skirball
This looks like fun — and we’re big on fun. But in the hands of whimsical choreographer Lionel Popkin (he’s chair of the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance and professor of choreography and performance at UCLA) this pumped-up pagaent portends much more. “Inflatable Trio,” choreographed by Popkin and built on human breath, will soon ...
Lichtenstein’s lingerings in Los Angeles
Nov
29
2016
Pop for the People: Roy Lichtenstein in L.A., an art exhibit now running at The Skirball Center through next March, explores how the artist, a vanguard of the Pop Art movement buoyed by a renaissance in printmaking, made fine art accessible to the American public in ways that had not been achieved before. The Skirball ...
Bill Graham, Ziegfeld of Aquarius 1
We pay over a hundred dollars for a decent seat at a Staples Center rock show without thinking twice, but it wasn’t always so. There had been rock events here and there as early as the late 1950s—Elvis at the Pan-Pacific Auditorium and the Beatles at Dodger Stadium—but they were occasional. Bill Graham (1931-1991) made ...