12.16.2010

REDCAT ANNOUNCES 2011 SEASON OF CONTEMPORARY VISUAL, PERFORMING AND MEDIA ART.


HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE: THE WORLD PREMIERE OF GEORGE HERMS' FREE JAZZ OPERA DEBUT U.S. PRESENTATIONS FOR VANCOUVER-BASED ARTIST GEOFFREY FARMER AND DUBLIN-BASED ARTIST JESSE JONES U.S. PREMIERE OF NEW ZEALAND-BASED DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER LEMI PONIFASIO'S TEMPEST: WITHOUT A BODY AT THE MILLION DOLLAR THEATER THE SIXTH ANNUAL REDCAT INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN'S FILM FESTIVAL GUTBUCKET CHAMBER ORCHESTRA'S WEST COAST DEBUT

Los Angeles - Building on the momentum of a successful autumn that featured heralded new commissions and daring Los Angeles premieres in both the theater and gallery, today REDCAT Executive Director Mark Murphy and Gallery Director/Curator Clara Kim announce the second half of REDCAT's eighth season. Included in the international program are world premieres from celebrated luminaries in the arts as well as bold bold new voices sure to enrich the creative landscape for years to come. Tickets for the majority of these events will go on sale this Friday, December 17 through REDCAT's box office, by phone at 213.237.2800 and online at www.redcat.org.

"This new calendar announces ambitious and international programs that feature influential artistic voices from more than two dozen countries," remarks Mark Murphy, Executive Director of REDCAT. "Our theater, gallery and lounge will be lively this spring, making an exciting contribution to the evolution of contemporary visual, performing and media arts." REDCAT's eighth season continues to span the globe, bringing together diverse cultural traditions and new innovations, while highlighting artists who are pushing the boundaries of genre and artistic expression.

An exemplary project is the U.S. premiere of Tempest: Without a Body, which will be presented by REDCAT at the historic Million Dollar Theater in downtown Los Angeles. "This is a first for us," remarked Murphy. "I knew I had to bring this prodigious work to Los Angeles, and that it's scale demanded a larger venue, so we are heading a few blocks east to the Million Dollar Theater, a perfect home for this celebrated production." Created by the Samoan-born, New Zealand-based director/choreographer Lemi Ponifasio for his company MAU, this visually stunning and awe-inspiring work entwines formally precise dancing with elements of theater, Polynesian ritual and social activism.

Earlier in the season, REDCAT hosts Show Your Face!, a collaboration between Slovene physical-theater troupe Betontanc, Latvian object-theater masters Umka.lv and the Latvian pop-electronic group Silence. This award-winning project is a virtuosic layering of puppetry, physical theater and dance with live music. Dance artists featured in the new year include South African choreographer Vincent Mantsoe, groundbreaking collaborative duo Eiko and Koma, celebrated Seattle-based choreographer Pat Graney, and Los Angeles' own Meg Wolfe.

Throughout the coming season genre-defying performance works spring from the minds of musical legends. Founder of California assemblage and an influential figure of the Beat generation, George Herms premieres a free jazz opera titled The Artist's Life. Co-founder of the seminal goth bands Bauhaus and Love & Rockets, David J finds new mythic dimensions in the rise and eventual drug and vodka-fueled crash of Andy Warhol muse Edie in Silver for Gold (The Odyssey of Edie Sedgwick). Other musical offerings include Gutbucket Chamber Orchestra, Mark Dresser Trio, John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble, Kasper Toeplitz, Emanuele Arciuli, and Ostad Abbos Kosimov. Also in the new year is an in-depth four program view of the career of Sofia Gubaidulina, one of the great living composers, as well as the return of several REDCAT favorites including Danny Holt, The Harry Partch Ensemble, and California E.A.R. Unit.

In the gallery, the provocative research studio Decolonizing Architecture presents an engaging exhibition on the use of architecture to create an "arena of speculation" about the future of Palestine through February 6, 2011. In February Vancouver-based artist Geoffrey Farmer transforms the gallery into an evolving installation/theatrical stage, in a "sculpture play" where found and composed objects, props, and costumes are altered on site with local collaborators. In April, Kim Beom's characteristic deadpan humor and subversive antics are brilliantly embodied in an installation of related sculptural tableaux called Educated Objects shown with his blueprints, matchsticks drawings and recent video. Finally, in the summer of 2011 Dublin-based artist Jesse Jones presents recent film/video works alongside a newly commissioned work developed during a residency period in Los Angeles that retrieves the artifacts of cultural history and revolutionary politics through the lenses of performance, music, and film.

The Jack H. Skirball Screening Series also continues to break new ground in 2011 with a diverse program of experimental film, video, and animation highlighting the work of Barbara Hammer, Martha Colburn, Fred Worden, Nancy Andrews, Michael Robinson, Betsy Bromberg, and Hartmut Bitomsky, among others. In addition to screenings devoted to individual artists, the series presents a program surveying the influential experimental films created in the San Francisco Bay Area between 1949–1959, as well as a group show curated by Erika Vogt that places the film/video work of visual artists, originally intended for galleries and museums, into a theatrical context. In addition to the Monday night screenings, REDCAT presents a remarkable four-night series that explores new independent Chinese cinema through six feature-length works.

Families and film lovers have learned to anticipate the return of the annual REDCAT Children's International Film Festival. The sixth edition of this beloved festival kicks off on March 26, and over the course of three weekends offers filmgoers of all ages a mind-expanding collection of short film programs from around the world.

ART

Through February 6 | Decolonizing Architecture

Set up as a studio/residency program in Beit Sahour, Bethlehem and recently re-established as the Decolonizing Architecture/Art Residency (DAAR), the studio focuses on the highly contested territories of the West Bank and the use of architecture to articulate the spatial complexities of decolonization within the region

February 18–April 10 | Geoffrey Farmer

For his first solo exhibition at a U.S. institution, Vancouver-based artist Geoffrey Farmer directs a "sculpture play," an evolving installation of found and composed objects, props, and costumes altered on site by the artist and a host of collaborators throughout the course of the exhibition.

April 22–June 19 | Kim Beom

Through a wide range of work that spans drawing, sculpture, video, and artist book, Seoul-based artist Kim Beom explores tension between internal psychology and external reality with a recent series of sculptural tableaux called The Educated Objects (2010) that playfully and subversively unpacks social education and developmental psychology, shown alongside drawings and recent videos. A catalogue focusing on the artist's extensive body of drawings made since the mid-1990s will be published.

July 1–August 28 | Jesse Jones

For her first solo exhibition in the U.S., Dublin-based artist Jesse Jones, whose work focuses on the political and social history of cinema, presents a selection of recent film/video works alongside a newly commissioned work that takes as its point of departure the Russian constructivist theater director Vselov Meyerhold's etudes on biomechanics and its influence on popular culture a la Busby Berkeley.

DANCE

January 13–16 | The A.W.A.R.D. Show!

The Joyce Theater Foundation comes to Los Angeles for a SoCal edition of The A.W.A.R.D. Show!, its wildly successful dance event that offers an alternate definition of "public funding" by granting $10,000 to a regional choreographer with the help of the audience's vote.

February 9–13 | Association Noa-Cie Vincent Mantsoe: San

Inspired by the journeys and spirits of the Khoi-San people of Southern Africa, Mantsoe's newest work brings together five dancers of different cultures, in a powerful piece dance that traces the history of a people forced from their land, silenced and subjected to continued brutality.

February 15 | Kasper Toeplitz and Myriam Gourfink: Breathing Monster

Polish/French composer and electric bass player Kasper Toeplitz teams with dancer and choreographer Myriam Gourfink to create an evening of abstracted, hypnotic movement and sound that explores the frontiers between pitch, noise, oscillations and stillness.

March 2–6 | Eiko & Koma: The Retrospective Project

Collaborative partners for more than 40 years, Eiko & Koma, venerated for their ground-breaking dance works, offer a powerfully moving triptych that traverses their early career and delves into dark worlds to elicit a profound contemplation of the unyielding forces of nature and human desire.

April 1–2 | Lemi Ponifasio/MAU: Tempest: Without a Body

From its ominous beginning to its shattered conclusion, this visually stunning work is a ferocious and awe-inspiring reflection on personal liberty and our current world that entwines formally precise dancing with elements of theater, Polynesian ritual and social activism.

April 28–May 1 | Pat Graney Company

Thanks to a national "American Materpieces" program, Alpert Award-winng choreographer Pat Graney is restaging works from a rich span of her creative life, and offering a chance to experience her sumptuous visual language, that uses qualities of time, light and ritual to sculpt powerful meditations on human action and culture.

June 3–5 | Meg Wolfe: trembler.SHIFTER

Full-out dancing collides with a destabilized sonic environment as Los Angeles choreographer Meg Wolfe's latest full-evening work propels a quartet of dancers through unsustainable acts balancing—with the joy, anger, angst, sweat and hell of bodies as its volatile fulcrum.

FILM/VIDEO

January 17 | Radical Light: Experimental Film in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1949–1959

Joining forces with Los Angeles Filmforum, UCLA Film and Television Archive and other venues, REDCAT celebrates the publishing of Radical Light: Alternative Film And Video In The San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000 with a series co-curated by the book's editors Steve Anker, Kathy Geritz and Steve Seid.

January 24 | Barbara Hammer: Experimenting in Life and Art

Widely celebrated throughout the world as a pioneer of queer cinema, Barbara Hammer has made over 80 films in a career that spans 40 years. This screening presents two of Hammer's recent works, Generations (2010) and A Horse Is Not A Metaphor (2009).

February 14 | Animating Mayhem: Collage and Painted Films by Martha Colbur

Martha Colburn's handcrafted animations explode with an energy, concentration and a rapid-fire torrent of ideas. Always startling in her use of disparate techniques and free association, Colburn creates films unlike any other, and the screening spans 16 years of filmmaking with 16 films.

February 21 | Body and Mind: The Primordial Cinema of Fred Worden

During the past twenty years New York-based Fred Worden has redefined cinema with his film and digital works, creating concentrated and transcendent experiences for both body and mind. Films include The Or Cloud (2001), Here Amongst the Persuaded (2004), 1859 (2008), Possessed (2010), and others.

February 22 | In Focus: The Humorous, Recent Video Art from Israel, Japan and Mexico

Exploring both differences and commonalities with a special emphasis on the humorous, three consulates, each with a rich tradition in Los Angeles, join together to present an array of video works from their respective nations, curated by Paul Young in association with Gabriel Ritter and Yoshua Okon.

February 28 | The Artist Theater Program

Film/video/installation artist Erika Vogt curates this group show, inviting visual artists who make use of film and video to present their work within the context of a theatrical exhibition venue, opening a dialogue between divergent communities of active makers that have historically overlapped.

March 8 | The Birdwoman and Her Dreams: Animated Works by Nancy Andrews

With characters and stories synthesized from sources including history and autobiography, Nancy Andrews works in a hybrid form that combines research with storytelling, documentary, puppetry and vaudeville. The program presents a selection of shorts along with two of her latest animated works.

March 10 | COINTELPRO 101

Claude Marks of the Freedom Archives screens his film that exposes illegal surveillance, disruption, and murder committed by the U.S. government in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, followed by a moderated discussion with SF8 defendant and organizer Hank Jones and legendary author and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz.

March 26–April 3 | REDCAT International Children's Film Festival

Presented in partnership with Northwest Film Forum, the 6th festival rolls out the red carpet for a mind-expanding collection of short film programs from around the globe, each crafted with care to appeal to the next generation of movie-lovers.

March 28 | Michael Robinson: Victory Over The Sun: Films and Videos by Michael Robinson

Recently listed as one of the top ten avant-garde filmmakers of the 2000s by Film Comment, Michael Robinson has created a singular body of work in film and video over the past decade that explores the poetics of loss and the dangers of mediated experience.

April 4 | Betzy Bromberg's Voluptuous Sleep Series

An active filmmaker since 1976, Betzy Bromberg returns to REDCAT with Voluptuous Sleep Series (2011), her first film in five years and a mesmerizing two-part 16mm meditation on the nuances of light, sound and feeling evoked through the poetic artifices of cinema.

Apr 6–8 | Between Disorder and Unexpected Pleasures: Tales from the New Chinese Cinema

Three days of curated programs reflect the virtual explosion of independent Chinese cinema has experienced in recent years by reaching beyond nostalgia and social protest to plumb surprising corners of Chinese reality with humor that is at times light, dark, saucy, dry, raunchy or conceptual.

April 18 | Eija-Liisa Ahtila: Where is Where?

The Finnish multimedia artist screens several shorts and her critically lauded experimental narrative Where is Where?, in which a four image split-screen evokes and deconstructs the murder of a young French boy by two Algerian playmates during the Algerian War of Independence in the 1950s.

May 2 | Specks of Existence: Hartmut Bitomsky's Dust

Through a web of interviews, poetic ruminations and cinematic investigations, Hartmut Bitomsky's Dust (2007) serves as a philosophical, factual and fanciful examination of the smallest objects that can be perceived, particles that permeate every aspect of life.

MUSIC

January 19–23 | Betontanc and Umka.lv: Show Your Face!

A virtuosic layering of puppetry, physical theater, dance, and music, this contemporary parable follows Little Branko, a faceless snowsuit transformed by puppeteers into a modern-day Everyman, on a dark odyssey through the 20th century.

Jan 28-30 | CEAIT Festival: Iannis Xenakis: Now and Tomorrow

Celebrating the way Iannis Xenakis forged new paths of hearing and seeing, three scintillating concerts feature new pieces by composers inspired by the legendary pioneer of music and architecture along with many of the artist's own acoustic and multi-channel electronic works.

February 3–5 | George Herms: The Artist's Life

Known as one of the founders of California assemblage and an influential figure of the Beat generation, George Herms premieres a new free jazz opera that features large-scale sculptural instruments, live and recorded video and a seven-piece orchestra led by jazz legend Bobby Bradford.

February 7 | Mark Dresser Trio

Double bassist Mark Dresser Trio is joined "hyperpianist" Denman Maroney and flautist Matthias Ziegler to push their shared artistic obsessions to even greater depths, making use of unconventional amplification and extended techniques to explore new worlds of sound and intuitive collaboration.

February 15 | Kasper Toeplitz and Myriam Gourfink: Breathing Monster

Polish/French composer and electric bass player Kasper Toeplitz teams with dancer and choreographer Myriam Gourfink to create an evening of abstracted, hypnotic movement and sound that explores the frontiers between pitch, noise, oscillations and stillness.

March 7 | John Hollenbeck Large Ensemble

Acclaimed for its rich, panoramic orchestral textures that retain the power of its members' individual voices, Hollenbeck's twenty-piece ensemble performs a daring mix of pure, heart-on-sleeve lyricism and robust rhythmic propulsion expressing emotions well beyond swing-era clichŽs.

March 9 | Piano And, featuring Danny Holt

Known for his no-holds-barred style and current Piano/Percussion Project that places the pianist amid an array of percussion instruments, calling for acrobatic feats of multi-instrumentalism, Danny Holt performs works by Andrew Tholl, Sarah Seelig, Oscar Bettison and Liza White.

March 24 | Emanuele Arciuli

An evening with Italian pianist Emanuele Arciuli featuring the monumental Concord Sonata by Charles Ives, paired with James Tenney's meditation on the sonata, as well as works by Native American composers Barbara Croall and Raven Chacon.

April 5 | Ostad Abbos Kosimov

Awarded the title of Honored Artist of Uzbekistan in his homeland, Ostad Abbos Kosimov is joined by the CalArts Persian and World Percussion Ensembles and his own Abbos Ensemble for an evening of traditional Uzbek and Tajik percussion music and dance.

April 10 | California E.A.R. Unit

Visually, theatrically and electrically charged compositions form the latest evening from Los Angeles' adventurous new music ensemble, highlighting composers Miguel Azguime, Chris Tonkin, David Dvorin and Shaun Naidoo.

April 14–17 | David J: Silver for Gold (The Odyssey of Edie Sedgwick)

Part delirious one-woman show, part avant-garde rock concert, this production written and directed by David J, co-founder of the seminal goth bands Bauhaus and Love & Rockets, finds new mythic dimensions in the rise and eventual drug and vodka-fueled crash of Andy Warhol muse Edie.

May 8 | Idyllwild Arts Academy Orchestra: What's New?

In celebration of the school's 25th anniversary, the young virtuosi of the Idyllwild Arts Academy Orchestra are joined by world-renowned jazz bassist and composer Rufus Reid to perform world premieres by Reid, Peter Askim, Pierre Jalbert and Jan Radzynski.

May 9 | Gutbucket Chamber Orchestra

The twelve-year-old Brooklyn-based quartet pushes composer-driven, art-rock-tainted chamber jazz into new terrain and boldly proclaims its voice. Gutbucket's West Coast debut celebrates their most recent recording Flock.

May 15–17 | Sofia Gubaidulina

Four programs present a kaleidoscopic view of the career of one of the great living composers, Sofia Gubaidulina. Now in her 79th year, Gubaidulina makes a rare U.S. appearance to share an intensity unrivaled in today's contemporary music scene.

June 10–11 | Partch

Under the direction of John Schneider, The Harry Partch Ensemble and an amazing array of custom-built instruments return to REDCAT"s stage for a concert and film screening that celebrates the inimitable music of American composer Harry Partch.

THEATER

Jan 19-23 | Betontanc and Umka.lv: Show Your Face!

A virtuosic layering of puppetry, physical theater, dance, and music, this contemporary parable follows Little Branko, a faceless snowsuit transformed by puppeteers into a modern-day Everyman, on a dark odyssey through the 20th century.

February 3–5 | George Herms: The Artist's Life

Known as one of the founders of California assemblage and an influential figure of the Beat generation, George Herms premieres a new free jazz opera that features large-scale sculptural instruments, live and recorded video and a seven-piece orchestra led by jazz legend Bobby Bradford.

April 1–2 | Lemi Ponifasio/MAU: Tempest: Without a Body

From its ominous beginning to its shattered conclusion, this visually stunning work is a ferocious and awe-inspiring reflection on personal liberty and our current world that entwines formally precise dancing with elements of theater, Polynesian ritual and social activism.

April 14–17 | David J: Silver for Gold (The Odyssey of Edie Sedgwick)

Part delirious one-woman show, part avant-garde rock concert, this production written and directed by David J, co-founder of the seminal goth bands Bauhaus and Love & Rockets, finds new mythic dimensions in the rise and eventual drugs and vodka-fuelled crash of Andy Warhol muse Edie.

More Here...

12.13.2010

@ The HAMMER - 75 Years of DC Comics


75 Years of DC Comics Within its short 75-year lifespan, DC Comics has created and destroyed entire cities, worlds, and universes with a cast of characters that includes the titans of the Superhero world. Comedian, actor, and writer Patton Oswalt will moderate a discussion among author Paul Levitz, DC Comics’ Jim Lee (Co-Publisher of DC Comics), and Geoff Johns (Chief Creative Officer of DC Entertainment), the creative and editorial superheroes behind the pages of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash and Green Lantern, who will discuss the pulp origins of DC Comics’ story lines and characters, as well as the future of digital publishing.

The discussion will be followed by a booksigning of Paul Levitz’s recently published 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking. Published by TASCHEN, this single most comprehensive book on DC Comics (with 720 pages and weighing nearly 16 pounds) includes more than 2,000 images—covers and interiors, original illustrations, photographs, film stills, and collectibles—reproduced using the latest technology to bring the story lines, the characters, and their creators to life. The book includes year-by-year timelines that fold out to nearly four feet and biographies of the legends who built DC Comics, the largest English language publisher of comic books in the world.

Patton Oswalt is a comedian, writer, and actor, and author of the forthcoming Zombie Spaceship Wasteland. As a comedian, Oswalt has shot three TV specials and three critically acclaimed albums, and starred in the documentary The Comedians of Comedy. His Comedy Central One Hour Special My Weakness Is Strong received a Grammy nomination and in 2009 Oswalt won critical acclaim in the feature film Big Fan. Oswalt also provided the voice for Remy, the rat, in Pixar’s Oscar-winning Ratatouille. He tours regularly both nationally and internationally.

Paul Levitz is the author of 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking. Levitz is a comic-book fan who has worked as editor/publisher of The Comic Reader, editor of the Batman titles and others, writer of over 300 stories—including an acclaimed run on Legion of Super-Heroes—and a DC Comics executive, finishing his 38-year stint with the company as President and Publisher. He returned to writing in 2010 with a new series of Legion stories and other projects.

Jim Lee is the Co-Publisher of DC Comics with Dan DiDio. He has illustrated several titles including Batman: Hush, Superman: For Tomorrow, All Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder, WildC.A.T.s, and the forthcoming Dark Knight: Boy Wonder. He has received a Harvey Award, an Inkpot Award, and three Wizard Fan Awards in recognition of his work.


Geoff Johns began his comics career writing Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. and JSA for DC Comics. He has worked on several titles including The Flash, Green Lantern, Action Comics, Teen Titans, and 52, and wrote the bestselling graphic novel Superman: Brainiac. In 2010 he was appointed Chief Creative Officer of DC Entertainment.

ALL HAMMER PUBLIC PROGRAMS ARE FREE. Tickets are required, and are available at the Billy Wilder Theater Box Office one hour prior to start time. Limit one ticket per person on a first come, first served basis. Hammer members receive priority seating, subject to availability. Reservations not accepted, RSVPs not required.

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12.09.2010

Art Opening- WRECK the WALLS @ SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS GALLERY Saturday 12.11.

Subliminal Projects Gallery presents Wreck the Walls, a group exhibition on view December 11, through January 15, 2011. A reception for the artists will be held Saturday, December 11, from 5-9p.

Wreck the Walls includes works by over 30 artists, established and emerging, who have helped shape the artistic spirit influenced by their times. Rebellious pioneers of their artistic genres, who came from a background where there are few rules and anything is possible, have helped pave the way for a younger generation of artists who are influenced by their prevailing subculture. From gallery to street art, this show expresses each artist's divergence and individuality, offering a visual cornucopia of painting, photography, mixed media, works on paper, digital prints, sculpture, graphic design, and illustration.

This show seeks to allow the viewer a window into the myriad worlds of a group of artists whose careers span over two cultural generations, and whose individual visions create a disjointed mosaic. Their works recall the vastly differing self-perceptions cultivated in a patchwork art world constantly seeking to define and redefine itself. Wreck the Walls embraces the multiple identities of the artistic practice, and rather than seeking to congeal the complex layers of artistic vision that make up the culture, the show celebrates distinct perceptions by juxtaposing artists, whether established or emerging, who reject uniformity in a culture that defies singular classifications.

OPENING RECEPTION:
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11th, 2010 - 5-9p

EXHIBITION DATES:
12.11 - 1.15 2011

Participating Artists include:

Alan Shaffer, Alejandro Gehry, Andy Moses, Bertil Petersson, Billy Al Bengston, Blek Le Rat, Curtis Kulig, David Ellis, David Yow, Ed Moses, Ellwood T. Risk, Erik Foss, Eric Schwartz, Eric White, Evan Hecox, Greg Lamarche, Jason Alper, John Van Hamersveld, Kelly Berg, Laddie John Dill, Larry Bell, Martha Cooper, Monica Canilao, Retna, Robbie Conal, Ryan McGinness, Ryan Travis Christian, Skullphone, Swoon, Tim Biskup, Vanessa Prage

12.07.2010

Sunday 12.12. @ the FOWLER MUSEUM - Fowler on the Town: Adam Silverman and Heath Ceramics


Fowler on the Town: Adam Silverman and Heath Ceramics

Heath Ceramics is one of the few remaining mid-century American potteries still in existence today. At Heath Los Angeles, an extension of the Sausalito-based company, studio director and potter Adam Silverman continues the company’s designer/maker tradition by producing one-of-a-kind and custom-made small works. Take a tour of Life in Ceramics, then join Silverman at Heath for an informal tour and Q & A about his own work creating functional wares and art.

Sunday, December 12, 2010 1–4 p

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12.03.2010

Sun, Dec 5, @ Royce Hall - Alice Coltrane Tribute featuring McCoy Tyner, Kyp Malone, Nels Cline, Flying Lotus and special guests.


A host of all-star musicians pay tribute to jazz legend Alice Coltrane at UCLA, the site of her historic 1976 recording Transfiguration. Led by Kyp Malone (TV on the Radio, Rain Machine) and co-curated by famed record producer Ian Brennan, the night will feature inspirational and improvisatory music with jazz keyboard legend and John Coltrane collaborator McCoy Tyner, guitarist Nels Cline (Wilco), acclaimed Dutch free-improvisation drummer Han Bennink, free jazz saxophone great Daniel Carter, jazz violin pioneer Michael White with vocalist Leisei Chen and harpist and vocalist Radha Botofasina--plus Alice Coltrane’s great-nephew and rising modern rock/electronic star Flying Lotus and others.

Sun, Dec 5, 2010 @7P
Royce Hall

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12.02.2010

@ CINEFAMILY - The 2nd Annual Los Angeles Animation Festival 12.3. through 12.7.

Animation fans rejoice -- The Los Angeles Animation Festival International comes to Cinefamily, from December 3rd-7th. Cinefamily is thrilled to be working with the producers of LA's own animation festival on this wonderful artistic enterprise -- and this year’s events include the U.S. premiere of the new Jan Svankmajer feature, Pixar's Teddy Newton discussing his acclaimed hand drawn/3D/CG short Day & Night, and guest of honor Will Vinton presenting his short films, specials, commercials and a 25th anniversary screening of his 1985 Claymation feature The Adventures of Mark Twain. And that's only the beginning; the festival will premiere screenings of high-quality contemporary international animated features, including the new Chinese independent feature Piercing 1, the red-hot Japanese anime mindblower Redline, and Sylvain Chomet’s new masterpiece The Illusionist. In addition, musician/artist/filmmaker Brent Green will narrate and perform the soundtrack of his new mixed media movie, and they will close the festival with a live rock ‘n roll soundtrack to the trippy cult classic Fantastic Planet! Artists’ panels, competition screenings, parties and award presentations -- a true international animation festival with something for everyone!


The LAAF Festival Pass allows you free guaranteed entry into every show in the fest, early admittance to any show, and admission into all LAAF festival parties!

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11.30.2010

@ REDCAT - The Wooster Group's version of Tennessee Williams' Vieux Carré- 12.1. through 12.12.10


U.S. premiere

Like Williams’ first big success The Glass Menagerie, Vieux Carré is a “memory play,” set in the boarding house in New Orleans where Williams himself stayed as a young man during the Depression. The young writer, as narrator, remembers his artistic and sexual awakening there. Inhabitants of the house swirl up out of the writer’s mind as archetypal Williams characters, longing for release and haunted by thwarted dreams. In The Wooster Group's version of Vieux Carré, the Group experiments with new modes of expression for Williams' lyric voice.

Directed by Elizabeth LeCompte
Performed by Ari Fliakos, Daniel Pettrow, Kaneza Schaal, Andrew Schneider, Scott Shepherd, Kate Valk

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11.29.2010

Tonight @ The Henry Fonda - Nick Cave's GRINDERMAN

Grinderman are Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Martyn Casey and Jim Sclavunos. On September 14th they released their new studio album Grinderman 2 via Anti-Records and are following with a tour of North America which began on November 11th. Together Grinderman have forged a distinctly different way of working, having cast off musical baggage, shrugged off accepted wisdom and tested pre-conceptions about who they are as musicians. The new album was co-produced by Grinderman and Nick Launay (Public Image Ltd, Birthday Party) and mixed by Launay.

Tomorrow night Grinderman will bring their potent dose of elemental music rooted in blues, punk, and no wave to the Henry Fonda Theater which should be a sure shot cure for the ailing No Pussy Blues that's going around lately.

SOLD OUT!

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11.22.2010

SPOKEN WORD @ The HAMMER - Tuesday 11.23 - Antonio Damasio: Self Comes to Mind

Antonio Damasio: Self Comes to Mind

Antonio Damasio is the David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience and director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California. He is an internationally recognized leader in neuroscience and has made seminal contributions to the understanding of how the brain processes memory, language, emotions, and decisions. His books include Descartes’ Error, The Feeling of What Happens, and Looking for Spinoza. His new book, Self Comes to Mind, is out now and published by Random House.

His work has helped us understand decision making, social behavior, and even consciousness… —Charlie Rose

ALL HAMMER PUBLIC PROGRAMS ARE FREE. Tickets are required, and are available at the Billy Wilder Theater Box Office one hour prior to start time. Limit one ticket per person on a first come, first served basis.

Parking is available under the museum for $3 after 6:00pm.

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11.20.2010

Tonight @ REDCAT: WUNDERBAUM: Looking For Paul

There is no way to know exactly what will happen when the daring Dutch theater ensemble Wunderbaum premieres a new work developed during a three-week REDCAT residency. Joining forces with Los Angeles performer, writer and activist John Malpede, the inventive artists are weaving many stories and themes together: The tale of their friend Inez, who lives next to Rotterdam's controversial "Santa" sculpture by L.A. Artist Paul McCarthy, which includes a 5 ft. butt plug; the adventures encountered during their LA trip (staged in a replica of a room at The Standard Hotel); and the breaking news from the Hate Crimes trial of a leading Dutch Politician who also seeks to slash funding for public art in The Netherlands. Expect an evening that is provocative, wildly funny, and perhaps a bit unsettling...

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11.17.2010

Friday @ the Egyptian Theater - Cinema Italian Style 2010 presents - UGO TOGNAZZI in PORTRAIT OF MY FATHER

Los Angeles Premiere!
PORTRAIT OF MY FATHER - UGO TOGNAZZI

One of the greatest Italian actors to come out of the 20th century. A bold and modern figure in his stylistic versatility, Ugo Tognazzi rather unusually stands as a common thread linking masters of Italian comedy such as Mario Monicelli, Luciano Salce, and Dino Risi, and sophisticated, provocative filmmakers like Marco Ferreri and Bernardo Bertolucci (whose film Tragedy of a Ridiculous Man earned the actor the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1981). This vibrant portrait traces over 4 decades of the brilliant career of Italian actor Ugo Tognazzi, who became internationally known in 1978 for his performance in BIRDS OF A FEATHER.

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11.12.2010

BECK, Cateano Veloso and Devendra Banhart to perform @ MOCA's 2010 Gala event tomorrow night.


On Nov. 13, the talent pulled in by this year’s MOCA gala creator, L.A.-based artist Doug Aitken, is a bit more time-tested. Aitken has enlisted chameleonic rocker Beck , a leader of the L.A. scene since 1993, when “Loser” became a folk-rap hit; Brazilian singer-songwriter-political activist Caetano Veloso, who helped launch Brazil’s hybrid Tropicalismo musical movement in the late 1960s; and Venezuelan-American performer Devendra Banhart, a sometime collaborator of Beck’s whom The Times has described asamong a recent wave of cosmic young folk players…stretching the definition of folk rock for a new century.”

Aitken and his musical allies will generate a work called “WE,” whose aim is a “cultural ambush” (Aitken’s term) of music and choreography “that will attempt to break the barriers of the stage and empower the evening through the arts.” There’s no word on whether Beck, Veloso and Banhart will play artist-decorated guitars that can be auctioned to benefit MOCA, as Lady Gaga’s Hirstified piano was last year, fetching $450,000. The 2010 gala is titled “The Artist’s Museum Happening,” in keeping with “The Artist’s Museum,” a large survey of L.A.-generated art since 1980 that opens at MOCA on Halloween.

Beck literally has happenings in his blood: his grandfather, Al Hansen, who died in 1995, was a player on the New York art scene in the late 1950s and 1960s; he was an early creator and chronicler of the unpredicatable art events called “happenings” that led to today’s genre of performance art. Speaking of happenings, getting in on what’s happening at the gala will cost you $5,000 or $10,000 per person, or $25,000, $50,000 or $100,000 for a table for 10. - Culture Monster


**Also, eighteen artists created one-of-a kind posters for the event, which will plaster the interior the gala’s unique venue—a structure designed by Los Angeles' ''Bohemian Modern'' architect Barbara Bestor. Click here to see an exclusive look @ four of these posters—from artists Hisham Akira Bharoocha, Raymond Pettibon, Steve Roden and Tyler Warren.

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11.09.2010

Michel Gondry will be @ FAMILY BOOKS on 11.11 signing My New York Diary

On Thursday, Nov 11, @ 7pm Michel Gondry will be signing copies of the brand new book/DVD, My New New York Diary at Family Bookstore In 2008, filmmaker Michel Gondry wrote to legendary cartoonist Julie Doucet to propose a film collaboration. Little did Gondry and Doucet know that the process itself would be the film, and they'd soon be starring in a "reality" comic and film of their own devising. They settled on a process that involved inserting the "real" Julie into a landscape of her own drawings.After meeting and filming with Gondry in Brooklyn, Doucet returned to her native Montreal and created dozens of drawings for the scenery, while Gondry, in New York, worked on editing the footage itself.

Over time, these two elements were combined, and the result is a magical, funny and touching 20-minute film. My New New York Diary contains all of Doucet's drawings for the film, as well as the DVD containing the film itself. Both the film and Doucet's graphic novella are being released only in this deluxe, hardcover volume from PictureBox, which does full justice to the richness and warmth of Doucet and Gondry's collaboration.

If you can't make it and would like a signed copy put aside for you, or would like Family to ship you a copy: contact@familylosangeles.com

Family
- 436 N. Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles 90036

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11.05.2010

Sunday 11.7 @ the Echoplex - Frontier Records celebrates their three decades of Los Angeles angst.

Lisa Fancher loves rock and roll, especially punk rock. She started out as a journalist, but then realized that by starting a record label she could do far more to support local bands than spilling ink about them. In 1980 she founded Frontier Records and signed The Flyboys, followed by seminal Los Angeles and Orange County bands like the Adolescents, the Circle Jerks, the Weirdos, Suicidal Tendencies,Thin White Rope, China White and Christian Death. Frontier was by all accounts the first punk label founded by a woman.

As more and more indie labels got absorbed by corporations, Frontier remained fiercely independent. Fancher stayed true to the punk rock DIY ethos, eschewing major label deals and continually releasing new material, compilations and special editions. She didn't get rich, but her ethics stayed true, earning her the respect of A&R guys she told to fuck off and bands she championed.

This Sunday November 7, Frontier Records celebrates their three decades of Los Angeles angst and anarchy at the EchoPlex with a roster-packed bill including the Adolescents,T.S.O.L., Rikk Agnew, the Pontiac Bros, the Avengers, the Deadbeats and secret special guests. Doors open at 4pm. The show is all ages, so it promises to be a great night of family entertainment... if your family is the kind that can put the fun in dysfunctional. Huff Post

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11.04.2010

@ REDCAT - SCREAM Festival: Noisefold - November, 5th.

Melding real-time animation and generative electronic sound within the legacy of cybernetics, NoiseFold unleashes a suite of selected movements in its live cinema works nFold 1.0, ALCHIMIA, and Neu_Blooms. Using sensor-activated computer systems and complex audiovisual feedback models, co-founders Cory Metcalf and David Stout synthesize a mesmerizing array of bio-mimetic visual forms that generate sound, celebrating the evolution of visual music as a form of instrumental play with semiautonomous systems. From subtle lifelike emanations to roiling upheavals of sound and light, their audiovisual events are at once familiar, mysterious, and strange. The result is a powerful synaesthetic experience where noise, music and image interact on a symphonic scale.

Co-presented with the Southern California Resource for Electro-Acoustic Music (SCREAM)

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11.02.2010

ORNETTE COLEMAN performs Wednesday, November , 3rd - @ UCLA Live's Royce Hall


Free jazz pioneer, Pulitzer Prize winner and peerless saxophonist Ornette Coleman has played a major role in the evolution of American music for more than five decades. At the 2009 Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, Coleman became the 16th person to receive the prestigious Miles Davis Award, instituted to honor an international jazz musician for his or her complete body of work and influence. Coleman was instrumental in breaking down jazz conventions in the 1960s, becoming the father of free jazz and returning the medium to its daring, revolutionary roots. Joining him on stage are his son Denardo Coleman on drums, Tony Falanga and Al MacDowell on basses.

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11.01.2010

Locals Only @ M+B Gallery now on view through December, 5, 2010.


Locals Only in an exhibition of color photographs by Hugh Holland that capture the Los Angeles skateboard revolution during the mid-Seventies from an insider’s perspective. At the nascence of a cultural movement—before extreme sports and corporate sponsorship—Holland documented rebellious teens gliding through the drainage bowls and emptied pools around Venice, Orange County and Brentwood’s Kenter Canyon Elementary School. The exhibition runs through December 5, 2010.


In the mid-Seventies, two events coincided in Southern California that gave rise to skateboarding as we now know it. The invention of the urethane wheel and the drought that emptied the pools across the city allowed the kids to ride their new boards in an entirely new way. Skateboarders, stoners, thrashers and bad-ass kids from different neighborhoods and backgrounds in Los Angeles began hitting the pavement after school and during the summer, creating a counter-culture that has inspired numerous books, songs, documentaries and films. From the flatland kids skating “freestyle” to the canyon kids going vertical and carving up drained out pools—including soon-to-be legends Stacy Peralta and Jay Adams—Hugh Holland perfectly captured their youthful innocence and the energy of the movement.


Unlike most photographers capturing the craze, Holland’s photographs were never about the sport. Holland shot with old color negative movie film, rendering his images in warm, soft tones that were in complete contrast to the sharp, crisp chromes that the majority of skate photographers were using at the time. Beyond the bodies in motion, Holland captures beautifully intimate portraits of the young boys sitting under the trees waiting their turn, resting by the chain link fence at Kenter or in peaceful contemplation after a long day of riding. Holland primarily shot his subjects in the late afternoon, bathing his models and settings with an effervescent, glistening quality. They are, in essence, photographs of a generation of boys discovering their identity amidst the backdrop of cultural phenomena that shaped a generation.

Hugh Holland (b. 1942, United States) had no formal training in photography prior to picking up a camera in 1968 after returning from a trip to Spain. He made a dark room and began shooting everything around him, particularly people.

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10.28.2010

@ MOCA Saturday Night 10.30.10 - The Opening of The Artist's Museum


All MOCA members are welcome to attend the advance viewing of The Artist's Museum, a showcase of works by artists who have shaped the Los Angeles artistic dialogue during MOCA's 30-year history.

Come and celebrate The Artist's Museum at an exclusive, artists and members-only opening party at both The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA and MOCA Grand Avenue. Complimentary shuttle service will be provided for transportation between venues. Cash bar and DJ set by artist Dave Muller at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA.

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10.27.2010

Sarah Silverman and Friends @ LARGO Thursday night 10.28.

An embarrassment of comic riches awaits at this week's Sarah Silverman and Friends show on Thursday night. Each month Sarah brings her special brand of stand up comedy to the intimate Largo stage, and with her, some of the best in the business. This month will see special guest musical comedy duo Garfunkel and Oates, and comic sweetheart Tig Notaro join the evening's fun. Plus, two comics are scheduled to appear that are so super special and exciting that we are not allowed to use their names. In the past, Sarah has surprised us with super duper guests such as Louis CK, Aziz Ansari, Gary Shandling etc., so you can trust us that you will not be disappointed.

Showtime is 8:30p


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10.26.2010

Tonight 8.27. - Hammer Readings - Slake: L.A. Iconoclasts

Slake: L.A. Iconoclasts

Edited by former LA Weekly editors Laurie Ochoa and Joe Donnelly, Slake: Los Angeles is a new LA-centric quarterly that examines all things curious, fictional, poetic, political and philosophical, comprising work by local writers and artists. The evening will celebrate Slake’s second issue with Q&As, readings, and performances by Slake contributors, including screenwriter and novelist Jerry Stahl, House of Leaves author Mark Z. Danielewski, comic actress and writer Lauren Weedman (The Daily Show, Date Night, Hung), cult film queen Mary Woronov, plus jazz ensemble the Max Wrightson Trio.

About tonight's readers -

Mark Z. Danielewski's piece The Promise of Meaning appears in Slake No. 1. He recently announced that he’s begun work on a 27-volume series of novels titled The Familiar, about a 12-year-old girl who finds a kitten (among, we’d expect, other things). The LA-based writer has gained a cult following with his experimental novels House of Leaves and Only Revolutions. A few days after the Hammer event, Danielewski will give a theatrical presentation of his ghost story The Fifty Year Sword at REDCAT on Halloween.

Jerry Stahl, who contributed the short story Sammy Talks Frank - wherein Sammy Davis Jr. unloads about Frank Sinatra - moved to Los Angeles when his employer at the time, Hustler magazine, did as well in the 1970s. He went on to write the critically acclaimed memoir Permanent Midnight and the novel I, Fatty among other works of fiction and several works for film and television.

Mary Woronov is a painter and artist who made her film debut in 1966 in Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests alongside Salvador Dali, Edie Sedgwick, and Warhol’s regular group of players. Once a dancer with the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, Woronov has gone on to appear in more than 70 films. She also has five books to her credit, including Swimming Underground, an account of her time with Warhol.

Lauren Weedman was a “correspondent” for The Daily Show starting in 2001, and is a regular on Hung and Reno 911. She is just as well known in Los Angeles for her funny, revealing, piercing stage performances such as BUST and Wreckage. She’s currently performing in her newest show, No … You Shut Up.

ALL HAMMER PUBLIC PROGRAMS ARE FREE. Seating is on a first come, first served basis. Hammer members receive priority seating, subject to availability. Reservations not accepted, RSVPs not required.


Parking is available under the museum for $3 after 6p.

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10.21.2010

TONIGHT! Thu, Oct 21, @ UCLA Live's Royce Hall - Laurie Anderson - Delusion


Conceived as a series of short mystery plays, Delusion jump cuts between the everyday and the mythic. Combining violin, electronic puppetry, music and visuals, the work speaks the colorful, poetic and imagistic language that has become Laurie Anderson’s trademark. Inspired by the breadth of Balzac, Ozu and Laurence Sterne and employing a series of altered voices and imaginary guests Anderson tells a complex story about longing, memory and identity. At the heart of Delusion is the pleasure of language and a terror that the world is made entirely of words.

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10.18.2010

SUPERCHUNK - @ The Henry Fonda Music Box Tuesday October, 19, 2010


Perhaps no band was more emblematic of the true spirit of American indie rock during the 1990s than Superchunk, the pride of Chapel Hill, NC. Following the D.I.Y. ethic to the letter, the group operated solely by their own rules, ignoring all passing trends by sticking to their trademark sound -- typified by the buzzing guitars and high, impassioned vocals of front man (and founder/owner of MERGE Records) Mac McCaughan -- and rejecting all major-label advances in favor of the unlimited freedom afforded by owning their own company. Since releasing their first 7-inch in 1989, Superchunk has run the gamut of milestone albums: early punk rock stompers, polished mid-career masterpieces, and lush, adventurous curveballs. Conventional wisdom holds that a band two decades into its career can only rehash or reinvent, but with Majesty Shredding, Superchunk has done something entirely different. Neither a return nor a departure, Majesty Shredding telescopes two decades into 41 indelible, action-packed minutes. It is the sound of youthful exuberance fine-tuned with grown-up confidence. And it may very well be Superchunk's best record yet.

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