Exhibit spawns critical reassessment of West Coast-rooted pioneers of post-modern dance
The place to be in the dance world this past weekend was splendiforous Santa Barbara, California, for the opening of “Radical Bodies: Anna Halprin, Simone Forti, and Yvonne Rainer in California and New York, 1955-1972,” an exhibit at UC Santa Barbara’s AD&A Museum. Offering toasts, in photo above, to five years of research and writing, ...
‘Radical Bodies’ in California exhibit and on the streets of New York
Politics was not the intended focus of the day-long conference that opened “Radical Bodies: Anna Halprin, Simone Forti, and Yvonne Rainer in California and New York, 1955-1972,” an exhibit at UC Santa Barbara’s AD&A Museum. Art was. The hugely instructive exhibit unearths and traces the influence on American modern dance of three groundbreaking, bi-coastal dancer/choreographers. ...
Meg Stuart: female brutalism tinged by vulnerability
Jan
23
2017
At left, a portrait of the expatriate choreographer Meg Stuart who is visiting Los Angeles this week. Her bravura solo, “Hunter” will be performed at REDCAT this weekend. Many choreographers in Los Angeles will find Meg fascinating and real. I am personally very attracted by her distinctive brand of female brutalism — mixing raw emotion ...
Nasty women, nasty men dance with ‘Two Hags’ sculpture: Susan Marshall & Co.
An upright metal grid of cut steel pipe bisects a table, and steel rods — sharpened to a spike — are prepared in rows. The dancers of Susan Marshall & Company pay careful attention to speed, force, and precision, while navigating dangerously sharp edges of Martha Friedman’s new sculpture, Some Hags. The spikes are pushed into ...
Worldly woman shocks small-town America! Pola Negri, you go girl.
Jul
14
2016
“A Woman of the World” (1925) stars Pola Negri in a comedy about a sophisticated European countess (do they make ’em unsophisticated?) who encounters culture shock during her visit to small-town America. Her continental freedoms — she smokes in public, she wears flashy makeup — clash with local morals. A crusading District Attorney enters the ...
Peggy’s place
Art of This Century, view of the Abstract Gallery, New York, ca. 1943. Courtesy Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. Left to right (paintings): Vasily Kandinsky, Landscape with Red Spots, No. 2, 1913; Kazimir Malevich, Untitled, ca. 1916; Francis Picabia, Very Rare Picture on Earth, 1915; Albert Gleizes, Woman with Animals (Madame Raymond Duchamp-Villon), 1914 (partially visible ...
Cinefamily in Chantal Akerman tribute
Oct
31
2015
The honoring of a highly respected filmmaker, Belgian-born Chantal Akerman (1950 – 2015), who died October 5 in Paris, apparently by her own hand at age 65 — a sad occurrence. The Cinefamily will screen Akerman’s chef d’ouevre, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce-1080 Bruxelles, which when premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 1975, ...
Girlz n the hood hang out with Misty Copeland
It was a real girl’s night out — a few righteous gents joined in — as Dance Camera West and The American Cinematheque joined forces, Tuesday evening, to host a sneak preview screening at the Aero Theatre of “A Ballerina’s Tale,” the new documentary about our first African-American principal dancer of American Ballet Theatre, Misty ...
Still in time for October dance month @ Brand Library & Art Center
Oct
13
2015
I’m often asked for names of interesting dance companies in Los Angeles. An intriguing locally produced series, Brand Associates’ Dance Series, offers a good selection in its two remaining showcases on a four-company roster on subsequent Saturday afternoons. The performances take place at the Skylight Gallery of Glendale’s fun Brand Library & Art Center. The four ...
Review: Twyla Tharp’s 50th, reminder of a revolutionary
photo: Sharen Bradford, New York Times Watching Twyla Tharp’s 50th Anniversary Tour performance at The Wallis in Beverly Hills was like taking a trip down memory lane with an old friend. (The Wallis co-commissioned the tour with four other presenters including The Joyce Theater in New York.) The old magic was there in Tharp’s juxtaposition ...