First dibs: Pam Tanowitz world premiere for Martha Graham Dance Company
(Untitled) Souvenir (2019) choreographer Pam Tanowitz for Martha Graham Dance Companyphoto Luis Luque We got it first. That is wonderful. Untitled (Souvenir) enjoyed its world premiere in Los Angeles on March 2, 2019, in the context of a rich and historic dance concert delivered by Martha Graham Dance Company. The venue was the glowing, still-newish Younes ...
Weather report: It’s raining female artists in Los Angeles
Feb
15
2019
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 ...
‘arts·meme nation’ fetes the nation’s holiday 3
Jul
4
2018
A July 2 gathering of creative Angelenos was first and foremost a super-fun ‘blog party.’ But lurking at the periphery was uncertainty. In an unsettling situation for our country, truths assumed to be self evident are revealed to not be universally held. Those values have been shaken give the incursions — philosophical, commercial, even life-threatening — ...
Terence Blanchard’s jazz message, in cabaret seating, at The Soraya
Trumpeter Terence Blanchard has been visiting this part of the country for years. Starting in the ’80s, he shared the valedictory frontline of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers with alto saxophonist Donald Harrison. Leaving the venerable drummer (“Our father, who art Blakey” quipped trumpeter Valery Ponomarev), Blanchard and Harrison co-led a good mainstream jazz band. They ...
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, pianist Joyce Yang bring lively arts to The Soraya
Mar
20
2018
In the third of its four-year residency at the Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts (The Soraya) — the erstwhile Valley Performing Arts Center — the beautiful boutique contemporary-ballet troupe Aspen Santa Fe Ballet brings an evening of repertory dance to live musical accompaniment. The program includes a new work Half/Cut/Split by ...
REVIEW: Keigwin + Company Celebrates Bernstein @ The Soraya
Not one, but two, sweet-hearted, newly commissioned dance works by choreographer Larry Keigwin for his charming and excellent dance troupe, Keigwin + Company, had world premieres tonight in the classy, comfortable, and elegant Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts (The Soraya), formerly the Valley Performing Arts Center. The commissions came as part ...
Choreographer Cherice Barton spreads happiness at VPAC
Feb
22
2017
She’s part of a tribe of young dance makers who hop fluidly between entertainment hot-spots—Las Vegas, L.A.’s Staple Center, Broadway, and Hollywood. Clients include Katy Perry (at the Grammy Awards); George Lucas (in a Disney film); Spider-Man (vaulting above Broadway); and two darling daughters ages three and four. Relishing her return to the ballet world ...
Class! John Pizzarelli’s Sinatra tribute at Valley Performing Arts Center
Dec
13
2015
I missed vaudeville. But I am making up for that loss by enjoying the rich artistic mash-ups and performance combos that Thor Steingraber is staging — he’s been inviting multifarious artists to share the stage of the sublimely intimate Valley Performing Arts Center where he is executive director. Anyone lucky enough to toast Frank Sinatra ...
What a week! Los Angeles blossoms in the fine arts
I’ve inhabited Los Angeles more or less, since 1989. The city’s rich art existence, long undetected, has kept me busy and happy here. There is little doubt, however, that something arts-phenomenal is happening right now in our city. It must be true; the New York Times is sputtering about it all the time. In fact, ...
Diavolo meets New West Symphony at Valley Performing Arts Center 2
We live in strong anticipation of DIAVOLO‘s season-opening “L’Espace du Temps” performance at the beautiful, acoustics-rich Valley Performing Arts Center. The performance will enjoy live orchestral accompaniment by New West Symphony, under the direction of Christopher Rountree, of a trio of scores by great composers: Foreign Bodies (2007, Esa-Pekka Salonen); Fearful Symmetries (2010, John Adams); ...