Does one really need to see Swiss filmmaker Jean-Stéphane Bron’s “The Paris Opera?” It's opening in L.A. at the Laemmle theaters this weekend. You can already imagine it, right: Venerable themes of youth and beauty and lonely artistic labor, as expressed by the bulging calf muscle and pointed toes of the student at the ballet barre? Or the … [Read more...]
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker Fest in Los Angeles
Resistance is futile: There is no way to rank or prioritize all the myriad events occurring next week during the choreographic & performance feast by Belgium-based choreographer Anne Theresa de Keersmaeker and her company Rosas at CAP UCLA. Every event in "Then & Now" is unmissable -- Tuesday is the only time de Keersmaeker will dance; … [Read more...]
Do You Think You Know Gene Kelly?
Teasing apart the movie musical a few years back, cultural critic Gilberto Perez wrote that each successful musical positions one of two figures of the artist in the fore: either the performer or the director. Sometimes, as in "The Band Wagon," we actually see the two figures characterized on film, fighting for prominence. But usually, one of the … [Read more...]
Ho-Hum “Footloose”
[This piece initially ran in the Los Angeles Times.] By one measure, director Craig Brewer’s 2011 restraint and careful focus in the retelling of “Footloose” appear a success for Paramount, and a boon for the propulsion of American dance. With heralded performances by its young leads and critical appreciation of its punched-up energy, Brewer’s … [Read more...]
Alvin Ailey on 24-City Tour
How to institutionalize the extraordinary? There is a lesson to be learned from the amazing success and vitality of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, now in its 53rd year. Their current tour is packed with choreography to inspire and dancers to full-on worship. I reviewed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater for the Seattle Times. The next … [Read more...]
Billy Elliot in Spades
The film “Billy Elliot” is a masterpiece of storytelling economy. Alongside its most famous thread — a young boy’s discovery of ballet — Lee Hall portrayed the impotent rage of a redundant working-class population (it’s set during the year-long strike of the British National Union of Mineworkers), the insularity and conformity of small-town England … [Read more...]
Benjamin Millepied talks Dance on Film
[this piece originally ran in the L.A. Times] Dancer Benjamin Millepied, 33, comes off as a bit of a highbrow pawn in "Black Swan," Darren Aronofsky's award-winning ballet-horror film. One imagines his character's pale hands, lifting Natalie Portman, as dull and mean and clammy. Off-screen, however, Millepied has the world in a wide, warm embrace. … [Read more...]
Rufus Wainwright’s ‘Prima Donna’
Back in February, I had the opportunity to see the newly restored Technicolor print of "The Red Shoes" as it passed through Seattle on an international tour. It's a grand, dramatic film with a power that sneaks up on you. It heats so very slowly that by the end the unsuspecting audience finds itself suddenly submerged in a boiling cauldron like one … [Read more...]
2009: Five Best Moments in Dance
In Seattle and otherwise... 1) "Esplanade" at the UW Meany Hall World Dance series. The dance that I saw as a young child that hooked me forever. It looked a little off-balance with a full-size woman in the jumping-over-bodies role (Lila York, for whom it was created, told me once that it indicated Paul Taylor's belief that the meek shall … [Read more...]
“La Danse” is Palatial
Even before I sat down to watch Frederick Wiseman's "La Danse," I asked NWFF executive director Lyall Bush if I might have the movie poster when the run was done. A few days later, Lyall said "Yes" (for a small contribution, natch). I love the poster, but it's misleading. Wiseman framed shots of isolated body parts less than a handful of times … [Read more...]