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 ...
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 ...
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 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 on the ...
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); ...