DANCE
Creative Beauty of Tender “July”
by Debra Levine | artsmeme
“July,” a stirring dance duet whose refined physical beauty gives form to its tender emotions, had its premiere Wednesday night before the great open backstage door of Jacob Pillow Dance Festival’s Doris Duke Theater.
The gifted duo, Jodi Melnick, a former Twyla Tharp dancer, and David Neumann, a dance-theater-comedy specialist, create More...
Carmageddon Cannot Crush Communist Caper-Ballet
by Debra Levine | artsmeme
Despite best efforts, California authorities (the people who brought you Ronald “Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev!” Reagan) could not put the kibosh on American Ballet Theatre’s “The Bright Stream,” choreographed by their new in-house guy, Alexei Ratmansky. Clearly controlled by Soviet agents, ABT foisted a clever piece of communist More...
Rennie Harris’s ‘Reign’ Rains on China
by Debra Levine | artsmeme
A woman stands at stage center, her knee-length black dress draping loosely over trousers. She’s trembling. Flashing lights — a disco? faux lightening? — cut the stage’s darkness. The sound of thunder, then rain, pours from the speakers. It’s loud, overpowering. The woman suffers, she’s convulsing; her corn-rowed hair flies in the s More...
Cuban National Ballet’s ‘Don Quixote’
by Debra Levine | artsmeme
Our Cuban brothers and sisters cruised into the Los Angeles Music Center last night driving their charmingly ramshackle “Don Quixote,” a vehicle purring on high-octane Russian ballet technique that’s been passed through generations — similar to the classic cars parading Havana’s island coastline.
The ballet was choreographed in 198 More...
The Mad, Mad Chase for Innovation in the Arts
by Diane Ragsdale | Jumper
A few weeks back, I wrote in a post that I’m beginning to wonder whether the process of adapting to a changing environment has become harder for arts organizations than it needs to be because many arts funders seem to be fixated on the idea that future success will come only through ‘radical innovation’. I suggested that perhaps we More...
Homesteading the Performing Arts
by Adam Leipzig
“I don’t think I can support myself as a playwright at this point,” Tony Kushner recently told a reporter.
Tony Kushner has written more than 20 plays, including Angels in America, and Homebody/Kabul. He’s won two Tony awards and the Pulitzer. If he can’t support himself in theatre, no one can.
What is it about American theatre More...
News Scan
By Adam Leipzig
Monday, November 8, 2010: I am feeling that it is terrible to be a human being as I read the New York Times. Afghan women burning themselves. The DEA sending an American to Pakistan who ends up being a planner for the Mumbai terrorist attacks.
Then in the Arts section I see this photo by Julieta Cervantes.
And tha More...
