‘People-wearing-color’ honor composer Allee Willis @ ‘Night of Wonders’
It was all kinds of people, of all kinds of colors, wearing all kinds of colors — notably hot pink, fiery orange, neon chartreuse, and Princely purple — mixed into the same outfit. This passel of arty party people wended their way to Valentine in the Los Angeles arts district on September 21, for a ...
Connie Corleone to tell-all at ‘The Godfather’ 50th-anniv screening
Sep
12
2022
The Godfather: Part II (1974) directed by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the novel ‘The Godfather’ by Mario Puzo. Talia Shire as Connie Corleone. Paramount Pictures. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images) She was a member of la famiglia. So hewing to the family code, she was tight-lipped. Like Michael. (And unlike the blowhard, Sonny). ...
Re-awakening the wonderland of Allee Willis 1
Allee Willis. Heard of her? She was a woman of color in so many ways. Born to a Jewish family in Detroit, she grew up loving Black music. Not too many years later, Willis made an awfully lot of people happy as the composer, or co-composer, of marvelous, burbling, and dance-able pop tunes of irrepressible ...
To Untermyer Gardens with Duncan dancers!
The dancers trained in the technique and philosophy of modern-dance pioneer Isadora Duncan (1878 – 1927) already danced at Untermyer Gardens! Having missed both opportunities (first in 1922, then in 1932), I’m so grateful to be attending an update of this essential American modern-dance history on Labor Day weekend. That’s this Sunday evening at six ...
Italy’s Kilowatt Festival: dancing an ‘ethic of living’
Detail from Piero della Francesca’s “Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels” In the hometown of Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca, the Tuscan borgo of Sansepolcro, the Kilowatt Festival, in its 20th year, examines how contemporary performance can foster “urban regeneration.” This year’s theme, “Excess of Reality,” entrusts performance with reformulating “a forgotten ethic of ...
REVIEW: ‘La Binoche’ swaps partners, melts down, in ‘Both Sides of the Blade’
Why does a movie stick in your head and haunt you for days after viewing? That was my experience with director Claire Denis’ latest, BOTH SIDES OF THE BLADE (2022), opening in theaters July 8 and streaming July 23. It surely has to do with the shattering intimacy of Juliette Binoche‘s beautifully modulated performance as ...
Happy Queen’s Jubilee from the Commonwealth’s indigenous artists
Jun
21
2022
Vincent Namatjira. Elizabeth and Vincent (on Country), 2021. Acrylic on linen. 48 x 60 inches. © Vincent Namatjira/ Courtesy the artist and Fort Gansevoort A vibrant-looking, good humored show from an unusual clutch of artists — Vincent Namatjira, Kaylene Whiskey, and Tiger Yaltangki, three leading members of the indigenous Indulkana Community in the northwestern region ...
‘Garden of Alla’s theatrical delights 2
Jun
17
2022
Alla Nazimova, nee Miriam Edez Adelaida Leventon, as Camille, and at the Garden of Alla in Los Angeles Joni Mitchell, a resident in nearby Laurel Canyon, said it best: “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” She was referencing, in song, the demolition of a 2.5 acre property at the south-west corner of ...
Grotesqueries courtesy of Spanish performance artist Marta Carrasco
photo: david ruano An intriguing woman artist from Spain is being presented in multiple performances by the Latino Theater Company at the L.A. Theater Center downtown. It’s the dancer, choreographer and performance artist Marta Carrasco, in a show with an equally intriguing title, Perra de Nadie (“Nobody’s Bitch”). Well, that’s a nice girly name. [We ...
Love as a one-way street at the Panorama
Jun
6
2022
She won’t stop writing to me — e-mails, letters, texts, cards — but it’s not merely because I hardly know her that I no longer reply. It is the increasingly demanding tone, and the fact that a romance is gaining momentum without my needing to be involved.-Unrequited Love, by Gregory Dart You’ve heard of a ...