Alex Theatre

Entertainment
Breaking the mold: Choreographers infuse their classical training with modern stylings in works for “Celebrate Dance 2008” at the Alex Theatre.

By Joyce Rudolph

Glendale News Press

April 8, 2008

From ballet-inspired break dancing to an acrobatic aerial performance, contemporary dance will take the stage next weekend at the Alex Theatre for Celebrate Dance 2008.

Eight West Coast companies, featuring more than 35 dancers, will perform in this third annual production, which will exhibit cutting-edge choreography, executive producer Jamie Nichols said.

“The choreographers look at today’s issues, today’s life, and create works looking forward with new movement vocabulary and new ways of moving,” Nichols said.

Choreographers take what they’ve learned in their dance education and recreate their choreography in a new way, she said.

“Each of these companies create their movements in different ways,” she said. “They have different backgrounds and put their own brand on what they do.”

For instance, Burbank choreographer Jacob “Kujo” Lyons, 31, began his dance career at 16 as a break dancer.

Self-taught in break dancing, he’s created a dance form that incorporates other forms like ballet and modern dance, Lyons said.

“I have had many radical ideas of how breaking could be portrayed or how it could be redefined, and redesigned as I questioned the validity of the boundaries and definitions that have been established,” he said. “I perceived that those boundaries and definitions were much more fluid, whereas others perceive them as static.”

Lyons’ Lux Aeterna Dance Company will perform the premiere of his piece, “Metanoia” to the song “Credo” composed by Arvo Part.

“Metanoia is Greek for change of mind,” Lyons said. “In a religious or psychological sense, it means inner transformation.”

The dance illustrates the transformation of one man told through five dancers — three men and two women, Lyons said. They transform from comrades into antagonists and back again.

What impresses Nichols about Lyons’ work is how he takes his break-dancing ability and combines it with classical choreography, ballet and contemporary dance, she said. His choice of music is also interesting, she added — Part’s music is a liturgical piece.

“He doesn’t use commercial rap or hip-hop,” she said. “He chooses music that is extremely complex and usually has a deeper spiritual meaning ultimately. He does beautiful work, and it’s very heartfelt.”

Another choreographer whose work will be in the show, Viktor Kabaniaev, also pulls from a classically trained background for his modern interpretation, Nichols said.

Kabaniaev graduated from the Vaganova Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia, and has been a principal dancer with companies in the former Soviet Union, Germany and the United States.

Now living in San Francisco, he teaches and creates dance routines. His company, Viktor Kabaniaev and Dancers, will present a contemporary ballet titled “Episodes Of .?.?. ” Nichols said.

“He uses all of that training to his advantage in creating a new way of moving,” she said.

Other highlights of the show include the red silk aerial contemporary ballet, “Le Coeur Illumine,” restaged for the Alex Theatre by choreographer Marie de la Palme and her company Motion Tribe; and the debut of a new Los Angeles contemporary dance company, BodyTraffic.

In the aerial ballet, the dancer is suspended in the air on red silk fabric, similar to the acrobatics performed by Cirque du Soleil, Nichols said.

“[The dancer] leaves the floor and flies through the air,” she said. “I’m closing the show with that piece.”

Each dance company’s performance is so different, it draws audience members back every year, Avry Budka said. She has seen the first two performances and already has her tickets for the upcoming show.

“One of the things my husband and I appreciate is that every troupe has something very unique to present,” she said. “The variety is very exciting.”

Heavenly harmony
Mormon Choir and Glendale Youth Orchestra perform together for first time at the Alex Theatre.

By Ani Amirkhanian

Glendale News Press

The Glendale Youth Orchestra and Southern California Mormon Choir are joining forces for the first time for a one-night performance Tuesday at the Alex Theatre.

The concert will feature about 70 members of the 54-year-old choir and the orchestra’s 37 young musicians who range in ages 11 to 18.

“The choir sounds awesome, and the orchestra is amazing,” conductor Brad Keimach said.

The choir decided to collaborate with the youngsters after a couple of members came to hear the orchestra perform, Keimach said.

“We had several members of the Southern California Mormon Choir come to hear us in concert, and after that we got their enthusiastic stamp of approval, and it was time to start preparing,” he said.

The Glendale Youth Orchestra will perform Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Symphony No. 35 in D for the first half of the program. The choir will join the orchestra during the second half for a performance of George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah.”

“The members love the idea of performing with Glendale Youth Orchestra,” said Jan Bills, associate conductor of the Mormon Choir. “They play challenging music. These kids are in that caliber.”

Both the orchestra and chorus have rehearsed independently for the upcoming concert, Bills said.

“Brad has come to one of our rehearsals, and he has such a wonderful rapport with the orchestra members,” Bills said.

For some of the young musicians, performing with a choir for the first time brings out mixed feelings.

“I’m really excited because it’s my first time playing with the chorus,” 16-year-old Katherine Park said. “They sound pretty good, and I’m happy about that. I’m proud to be playing with them.”

Katherine, a Glendale resident and cellist, also plays for the Hoover High School orchestra.

But others, including 11-year-old Alyssa Quiogue, are a bit more anxious.

Alyssa, a Burbank resident, is the assistant concertmaster and the youngest member of the orchestra. She has been playing the violin since she was 7 years old.

“It seems good, and I feel a little nervous because I have never played with another group before,” Alyssa said. “I think I’ve heard lots of good things from Brad. They sing really well.”

DANCE REVIEW
Celebrate Dance 2008
The showcase’s mostly L.A.-area choreographers have no fear in pushing toward the future of the art.

By Lewis Segal
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Border crossings dominated Jamie Nichols’ Celebrate Dance 2008 at the Alex Theatre on Saturday, the latest installment in an annual showcase of mostly local choreographers and companies. No matter how the eight pieces began — whatever vocabularies or idioms represented home base — you could predict that they’d soon head into uncharted territory.

Some works used virtuosity to keep you watching. They were experiments disguised as showpieces. Others simply assumed that the audience craved exploration, wherever it led.

The easiest to describe is the oldest: Marie de la Palme’s familiar “Le Coeur Illuminé” (to Ravel) from 1999. Fusing balletic pointe technique with gymnastics, it showed Melissa Sandvig unwinding from one long skein of crimson fabric only to embrace and climb another, stretching and spinning high above the stage.

Lyrical, dreamlike, metaphoric, the solo provided balm to the eyes even as it tested the dancer’s upper body strength as few ballerina vehicles ever have.

Bradley Michaud’s “Claudia” (done to remixed Orbital), one of the six premieres on the program, turned hyper-physical, take-no-prisoners movement inside out, using it for confessional psychodrama. Harrowing solos for Michaud, Nicole Cox and Jessica Harper, plus a more conventional (and less satisfying) final trio, became expressions of pain — raw evidence of how people can be torn apart by their emotions.

We’re used to this kind of subject in conventional modern dance, but not with the kind of fearless athlete-dancers usually intent on displaying limitless prowess.

A similar mission made Bay Area choreographer Viktor Kabaniaev stray far from the Russian classicism of his heritage toward ultimate stylistic transparency in the complex solo “Episodes of . . . ,” to an original score by Kabaniaev and Nicolas Van Krijdt.

As Irene Liu moved from liquid horizontal passages into edgier, more assaultive sections, the whole question of techniques and training systems dissolved.

Ultimately, you knew only that Kabaniaev had in his creative arsenal everything he needed to tell this story about a woman’s deepest feelings.

With his brilliant quintet “Metanoia,” Jacob “Kujo” Lyons took his radically reconceptualized street-dance style into the realm of the spiritual, slowing down B-boy maneuvers and gymnastics until they became a perfect if unlikely complement to Arvo Pärt’s agonized “Credo.”

At one point, Lyons choreographed a trio that amplified the cantilevered balances he was exploring at that moment in a duet with Sarah Moser, a sequence as daring structurally as it was physically — and drop-dead awesome in its millennial bravura.

In their unsparing male sextet “Dar Es Salaam,” Esther Baker-Tarpaga and Olivier Tarpaga used exotic music (mostly live) and a forceful, individual brand of movement theater to depict the unbearably brutal physical labor, individual suffering and moments of brotherly solidarity of a lifestyle scarcely ever evoked on dance stages.

We never learned who these workers were (miners? factory hands? convicts?), but their intensity proved unforgettable.

Lillian Barbeito’s “Da Vinder,” set to a compendium of contemporary recordings accented and overlaid with live cello, took four women in the opposite direction: from restless searching to acceptance and affirmation.

Fresh and skillful, it ended with a solo with nothing in mind other than Tina Finkelman Berkett’s playful and almost childlike interaction with cellist Emily Corwin. And that was more than enough.

Looking backdated among the evening’s more ambitious offerings, Ana Maria Alvarez’s spirited “Mundo Plastico” (mostly to Willie Colon and Rubin Blades) subjected Latino ballroom dancing to rudimentary analysis via slow-motion and other structural strategies — though the final sequence kept her cast clustered upstage for too long to make much impact.

And Jennifer Backhaus’ fluid octet “Arrive” (performed to Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky) simply reiterated what the local dance community already knew about her sophistication and refinement without asking her excellent dancers for anything they hadn’t done before. Nice work, but a mite disappointing in an evening focused on the future of the art.

lewis.segal@latimes.com

Columns
FROM THE MARGINS:
Filling a big void with the arts

By PATRICK AZADIAN
Glendale News Press

My friend Elissa Glickman, the director of marketing and resource development for the Alex Theatre, asked me the age-old question: “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?”
She went on to make an analogy to the arts by asking: “If you create art and no one comes to see your work, is it still art?”

I personally think it is.

The more complicated question is that if you are the last human being on earth, will you be motivated to create art? And if you do, and there is no one there to judge it, is it still art? The same question can be posed to many other social situations.

If you like red Ferraris, and if you had the chance, would you drive one on a deserted island with no chance of escape and zero possibility of being seen? Would you still ride in the Italian masterpiece driving around the island at high speeds claiming you were doing this for yourself, and no one else? And would you still take a shower in the morning before getting into the car and nowhere to go?

Human beings are social animals. By this, I don’t mean we like to have big weddings or participate in poker nights now and then. But our existence is meaningless without the society around us. And many of the things we do — breathing, eating and bowel movements excluded — are a products of our social environment.

I understand where Elissa was going with her line of philosophical questioning. Because of her position she has an interest in promoting and championing the arts in our community. Her questions were leading to the plight of artists in our city. Glendale is rich with people who are dedicated to the many aspects of the arts. We have painters, visual artists, dancers, singers and many more. Yet, few people know about this talent. Many take their trade and exhibitions outside the borders of Glendale, where people are more receptive and conditions more favorable for growth and appreciation of the arts.

There has always been talk of a void in our city about supporting the arts. As in any other aspects of life, unless there is a movement or an organization driving a qualitative change in our lives, conditions are more
likely to remain unchanged.

But if the void is real and genuine, it is a matter of time before someone or something fills it.

According to Elissa, the Alex Theatre has plans to become a new nonprofit arts organization that will spread the word about local artists and their work. This new organization, the Glendale Arts Alliance, will be making its case at the Glendale Redevelopment Agency meeting in mid-April. Should the new organization get the blessing of the city, it will begin its new life as early as July 2008.

The arts alliance has pledged to work with artists, art organizations, businesses and the city to provide resources to help promote of their work. The organization will continue to manage and operate the Alex Theatre on behalf of the city.

In addition, the arts alliance plans to promote programs and activities, including workshops, concerts, lectures, exhibits, readings, performances and marketplaces. It will aim to generate support of the arts among financial stakeholders including donors, foundations, local businesses, corporate sponsors, educators, government agencies and residents.

The arts alliance will also aim to encourage collaboration of artists and arts organizations to take advantage of the scarce resources for the arts. The organization will collaborate with local educational institutions to
integrate the arts into student’s educational experience.

My uncle Ruben Amirian, a local artist and architect, always addresses this void regarding the arts whenever I run into him. I often ask myself how I can help fill this void, but as French-Algerian author and Nobel prize
winner Albert Campus said: “All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant’s revolving door.”

The arts alliance can be that beginning. I am looking forward to seeing the void filled.

————————————————————————
PATRICK AZADIAN is a writer and the creative director of a local marketing and graphic design studio living in Glendale. He may be reached at respond@fromthemargins.net.

Attendance is up, but theater still reports loss
Executive director at the Alex says its challenge is to find ways to use venue during the week.

By Jason Wells

Glendale News Press
March 1, 2008

DOWNTOWN — Second-quarter financial data released Friday for the Alex Theatre reflected signs of a strengthening client base, a key indicator of how successful its role as an independent venue will be seven years from now when city subsidies dry up, officials said.

While its year-to-date loss had increased $42,000 to more than $247,700 over the same period last year, activity at the landmark theater had increased nearly 24%, bumping attendance up 4.8%, according to the report.

The report, which will be presented Tuesday to the Redevelopment Agency, cited higher maintenance and staff costs and increased insurance premiums for the loss, but touted a 9.1% increase in net rental revenue — the theater’s main source of revenue outside of city funds.

“We’re very happy that attendance is back on the upswing,” Executive Director Barry McComb. “For us, the challenge has always been to try and find ways to utilize the theater during the week.”

That challenge may be easier to overcome if the City Council — which props up theater operations with an annual $415,000 subsidy — approves a proposed overhaul of the theater’s management structure.

Since the city purchased the struggling theater in 1992, the nonprofit Alex Regional Theatre Board has managed operations there, but McComb is looking to change that with the proposed Arts Alliance — a new oversight group with a broader mission to expand the venue’s reach.

Instead of relying on film shoots to plug rental scheduling holes during the week, the theater has begun hosting more receptions in the foyer, which brings in less cash but attracts future business, McComb said.

And if the Arts Alliance is approved, an outside sales manager would be brought in to attract more business from outlying areas, he said.

“Certainly, making that move is a big piece of the strategy for how we’re going to reduce our reliance on the city,” he said.

Much of that profit growth will need to take root ahead of 2015, when city subsidies will end with the sunset of the Central Glendale Redevelopment Area.

Those subsidies have played a key role in the theater’s financial solvability, city officials said. The city’s $415,000 transfer this year wiped away the theater’s $247,700 deficit, leaving a $167,300 surplus, according to the report.

But it’s easy to get caught up in the drama of dollar figures and overlook the equally important growth in attendance and activities — an indication that efforts to increase awareness and tailor programming to community tastes are paying off, said Arman Kayvanian, who serves on the city Arts & Culture Commission.

In the second quarter, 57,627 people attended events at the Alex, a 4.8% increase over the same period last year, according to the report. And more of those events were performance-based, which filled in the 66.7% drop in film and TV shoots.

Over the past month, hundreds of stakeholders have attended theater-sponsored community input meetings on how the proposed Arts Alliance can better serve Glendale, while giving broader assessments of the challenges current artists face here.

And in January, the arts commission established a subcommittee to facilitate more intense strategic arts planning between the city and public.

“It’s finally paying off for us, I guess,” Kayvanian said.

The Redevelopment Agency, which is also expected to authorize $16,250 for ongoing capital improvements at the theater, meets at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday in City Council Chambers, 613 E. Broadway.

JASON WELLS covers City Hall. He may be reached at (818) 637-3235 or by e-mail at jason.wells@latimes.com.

Arts community voices concerns
Increasing costs of putting on exhibits and productions is among suggestions for improvement.

By Chris Wiebe
Glendale News Press
NORTHEAST GLENDALE — More than 30 representatives from local arts organizations met Thursday night to discuss the future of art and culture in Glendale and how the newly formed Glendale Arts Alliance and the city’s Arts and Culture Commission can support local efforts to market and promote the area’s arts scene.

The meeting was a chance for residents who have an interest in Glendale’s arts community to voice their concerns, said Ted Osborn, chairman of the Alex Theatre Board.

“The thought of this is that there really won’t be an answer, no real debate,” he said. “We simply want to open the floor and get as much out on the table.”

Participants raised concerns such as a need for more promotion of the arts in Glendale and the increasing costs of putting on exhibits and productions.

“There are rising costs of just putting on a production, which would include the rental of performance space and advertising and all of those things,” said Pam Ellis, a member of the Alex Theatre Film Society and Theater Nova. “If there is a way we can get some assistance in that, that would be helpful.”

Some questioned whether the city of Glendale was doing enough to advance the arts in the community.

“I think there was a time when we first did our strategic plan in Glendale when you could say that our city government was really arts-friendly,” said Pam Elyea, who is involved with History for Hire, a prop house. “There was a little bit of funding, not a lot, but cities around us still do that .?.?. and in Glendale they don’t.”

Participants at the meeting agreed that pooling the resources of different arts organizations in town would be a positive way to centralize promotions and inform the public about exhibits and events.

Glendale architect Ruben Amirian proposed allowing developers to build square footage that was dedicated to renting to galleries, museums and art organizations at reduced monthly rates.

“There should be a money incentive for galleries to come,” Amirian said. “Otherwise they won’t come.”

Glendale Arts Alliance will hold another forum on Feb. 7 to explore what sponsorship opportunities could benefit visual and performing arts-related programs. That meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. in the Glendale Unified School District board room.

City arts movement leaps ahead
Committee of commissioners is established in hopes of increasing the presence of art.

By Jason Wells
Glendale News Press

CITY HALL — An ongoing effort to integrate a nascent arts movement into city planning took another step forward Thursday after the Arts & Culture Commission created a temporary, three-member subcommittee that will work more closely with the city to increase the arts in strategic planning.

The committee — which will include commissioners Arlette DerHovanessian, Joylene Wagner and Razmik Grigorian — lurched into being only after the commission came to a consensus that holding additional, special meetings to increase communication with city staffers would be too cumbersome.

“I think too much help can extend this out eight or 10 months,” said Wagner, who also sits on the Glendale Unified School District Board of Education.

But implicit in the desire of too many commissioners wanting a spot on the committee was a message that is spreading throughout the art community — that art supporters not only want art to play a larger role in civic life, but they want a seat at the table on how to make it more present.

More than 100 people turned out last week for a community event introducing the proposed expanded scope of the Glendale Arts Alliance, a restructured incarnation of the Alex Regional Theater Board that received tentative approval from the Redevelopment Agency in November.

On Jan. 15, the City Council tentatively approved a set of proposals that would allow developers of downtown projects to include dedicated arts and culture space in exchange for more stories.

Parks officials have been incorporating more public art elements in new park designs, and attention to the visual impact of redevelopment from the community has increased at public meetings.

“The arts over the last couple of years has certainly moved up on the priority list,” said Barry McComb, executive director of the Alex Theatre.

In doing so, the issue of moving Glendale closer to other metropolitan areas and their emphasis on arts and culture stands ready to receive its greatest gain, city officials and arts proponents say.

“I think overall, it’s going to be an excellent year for arts and arts planning,” said Grigorian, chairman of the arts commission.

But as much as the art community stands to gain through its continued promo efforts, some would like to see city government take one of the most definitive steps toward ensuring the cultural upswing.

Councilman John Drayman said that while the city has benefited from efforts of the Arts & Culture Commission and Glendale Arts Alliance, along with the countless hours put in by independent artists, to promote the arts scene, it has not done enough on its own.

“For too many years, the city has neglected the issue and pointed to the efforts of others,” he said.

“We can’t as a city point to those existing programs and say, ‘We have a culture-rich plan in city government,’” Drayman said.

The Arts & Culture Commission should report to an arts, culture and design department — not the city’s Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department, where staffers there carry more expertise in planning-related issues, he argued.

With a council that seems more open to fueling the change already in the air, Drayman added, giving the commission a staff of experts that can support direction with grant writing and advice would put Glendale on a permanent track to cultural success.

Certainly, going the way of Los Angeles and other cities would make a strong point, McComb said.

“If the city did that, I think that’s probably one of the stronger statements of support and commitment to the arts,” he said.

And support can run both ways, according to a recent economic impact report.

For the second time, Glendale participated in the Arts & Economic Prosperity study — sponsored in part by Americans for the Arts — that found the nonprofit arts and culture community in 2005 was a $12.7-million industry in the city, generating 357 full-time jobs and $1.5 million in local and state tax revenue.

Nationally, investments in the arts produced a 7-1 return for the government, the report found.

JASON WELLS covers City Hall. He may be reached at (818) 637-3235 or by e-mail at jason.wells@latimes.com.