REVIEW: Count Basie Orchestra swingin’ at The Soraya 2
count basie orchestraphoto: luis luque for the soraya When the Count Basie Orchestra concert at the Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts was cancelled for the COVID shutdown in March 2020, it was a bitter pill. When the cloud lifted, Soraya director Thor Steingraber declared that the match would no longer be ...
Martha Graham Dance Company, dancing through time 2
ed. note: This story by dance critic Debra Levine, commissioned and originally published by the Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for the Arts, is reprinted with permission. When Martha Graham placed a single bare foot—famously small, her feet had enviable high arches—on the stage of New York’s 48th Street Theater in her 1926 debut as ...
post sponsored by The Soraya
Action-packed ‘Hotel’ from Cirque Éloize
Jan
16
2020
making their entry: artists of cirque eloize Ed. note: This article was commissioned and first published by The Soraya. It is republished on artsmeme with permission. They hurtle, tumble, and spin. They climb, juggle, and balance. Often, in practice, they fall. They’re the riveting performers of the Montreal-based contemporary-circus troupe Cirque Éloize (“ell-waz”). Their tireless ...
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 ...