REVIEW: Cécile McLorin Salvant plays Royce Hall
While she’s no stranger to Southern California audiences, vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant’s show presented by CAP UCLA’s Royce Hall on January 26 reinforced her status as a one-of-a-kind singer. Through her idiosyncratic artistry, willingness to indulge the moment, and her genial manner, Salvant charmed and thrilled the near capacity of Royce’s floor. In the broader ...
Hélène Grimaud, with Wild Up & wild wolves 2
Jan
16
2023
Ed. note: This story by Debra Levine, commissioned and published by the Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for the Arts, is reprinted with permission. As a child growing up in Aix-En-Provence, the French-born piano virtuoso, Hélène Grimaud, was rambunctious. Her parents, both professors, clambered to channel her energy. Lessons in martial arts, tennis, and ballet ...
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, ...
Julianne Moore, actress of our times, in ‘When You Stop Saving the World’
Dec
23
2022
eisenberg, moore, courtesy variety studio at cannes Some guys have all the luck. Take Jesse Eisenberg, for example. As an actor he has inherited the mantle of stammering Jewish neurotic as a surrogate for Woody Allen, who is now in retreat. In his feature-film directorial debut, “When You Stop Saving the World,” he has a ...
Divas of our lifetime! Dionne Warwick, Chita Rivera on stage
stellar ladies of the arts, one singer, one dancer She’s a beloved American cultural icon. She’s beautiful and well preserved. AND she has a new movie, a documentary. Dionne Warwick began singing professionally in 1961. Discovered by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, the marvelous songbird went on to record 18 consecutive Top 100 singles (Don’t ...
Movie picks: by, for, and about grown women
The fascinating actress, Tilda Swinton, gives a pitch-perfect performance that traverses the wide-ranging emotions — tenderness, sadness, yearning, powerlessness, regret — of the mother-daughter relationship. The Eternal Daughter, the latest in a series of artistic collaborations between Swinton and director Joanna Hogg (prior forays, The Souvenir, Parts I & II), never jars as it moves ...
Ruth St. Denis sightings
Dec
5
2022
miss ruth 1914 As time marches on, the figureheads of the 20th century dance fall from our reach. But a surprising number of dance devotees in Los Angeles had contact, however minimally, with the great modern-dance pioneer, Ruth St. Denis. Forever known as “Miss Ruth,” she spent her final decades in our city. First up ...
An infusion of ‘now’ into Trisha Brown Dance Company
Dec
1
2022
judith sánchez ruíz credit: arnaud beelen Interesting news from Trisha Brown Dance Company (TBDC) in New York: the 50+ year-old dance company has announced its first creative commission since the death of its founding choreographer Trisha Brown in 2017. Cuban-born choreographer Judith Sánchez Ruíz, who was a TBDC member from 2006 to 2009, has been ...
Blake Edwards cool neo-noir ‘Experiment in Terror’ in 60th anniv screening
Dec
1
2022
shot on location san francisco early 60s Movie director Blake Edwards, known primarily as a comedy specialist, followed the biggest hit of his early career, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, with a complete change of pace, the neo-noir thriller, Experiment in Terror. In this a taut suspenser released in 1962, Edwards utilized a full range of stylistic ...
A rose is a Jacqueline Bisset, in new movie ‘Loren and Rose’
It’s not Jacqueline Bisset. That’s the first thing you need to know. It seems to be; it’s tempting to think it is, but no. Even though we see Ms. Bisset at her most vulnerable and fierce, the new movie starring this enduring lady of the cinema is neither autobiographical nor a documentary. She’s playing a ...