Anyone who’s spent even a small amount of time on the African continent has a good idea of what people mean when they use the phrase “African nostalgia.” Even if you haven’t traveled there, it’s easy to get a back-to-our-roots sense from the culture, art, music, and design available to us in the US. Everything from HBO’s “No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency” to Youssou Ndour’s documentary I Bring What I Love shows this simple side of life, but not in a melancholy way. Instead, we see this beautiful, rhythmic, traditional lifestyle in which tribal differences are as often respected as they are fought over. A primary part of what we know, culturally, about the continent is the music of Angelique Kidjo – a singer who hails from Benin and whose voice sooths as it entices.
With formal jazz music training from the CIM in Paris, Kidjo performed last March at USC’s Bovard Auditorium and has worked with some of music’s greatest performers including Carlos Santana, Ziggy Marley, and Peter Garbiel on her recent album Djin Djin. Her music will, we have no doubt, be of the strength and soul that it will fill the Walt Disney Concert Hall on Sunday evening (February 28) during her solo performance. To make sure that we’re all on the same page with this brand of “African nostalgia,” we’re giving away tickets for Kidjo’s Sunday evening performance!
This is, indeed, an Extra! Extra! giveaway – a reluctant one, since we wanted to keep this tickets for our greedy little selves. Just keep in mind that by entering into this giveaway, you’re automatically entered into the next three we agree to giveaway. All we need is your first name, last name, and your email address and voila – you’ll feel like you’re picking through markets in Dakar in no time.
(Click hereif the nostalgia is all too much and you’d rather buy your own tickets.)
I may be living in the “age of technology” here in 2010, with the smart phones and the talking GPS devices and the iTunes auto-DJ always at my disposal. We’ve all become pretty accustomed to—and spoiled by—this kind of “smart” technology that’s taking over at such a rapid rate. But, to this day, when I hear “robot technology” or “artificial intelligence,” I still think of Rosie—the sweet, lovable, wheel-legged house-bot from The Jetsons. And that’s just what I was expecting when I attended the SCREAM Festival at the REDCAT this Wednesday night, where the KarmetiK Machine Orchestra performed a unique symposium of electronic North Indian music.
The Karmetik Music Orchestra is the creation of music director Ajay Kapur, production director Michael Darling, and a whole team of musicians and designers both within and without the CalArts sphere. Ajay Kapur is the Director of Music Technology at CalArts and the creator of KarmetiK, a body of artists and engineers working to redraw the line between music and technology. KarmetiK uses artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction technologies to create new digital works of art. This is more than just reinventing the sitar, though. This is a whole new man behind the sitar. I’m talking about robots, here. The researchers and engineers at KarmetiK have pushed the technological barrier so far as to create custom-built robotic instruments that can improvise with a human musician, fusing musical tradition and modern engineering.
Neat! But are these robot-musicians self-aware? Maybe not, but this was nothing like what I expected. At Wednesday night’s performance, five robots shared the stage with a dozen or so musicians. Two strange looking drum sets hovered on each side of the stage, roughly seven feet from the ground, with drums, bells, cymbals, gongs, strings, and shakers splaying from the center. A rain stick spun slowly on an automated pinwheel at stage left. There was a gamelan-bot, like the Reyong used in the Balinese tradition, with upside-down metal pots suspended on a wooden frame. Tammy, a master-bot of sorts, stood high in the center. Tammy was designed by the well-known instrument sculptor Trimpin, Michael Darling, and Ajay Kapur, and built by students in the Robotic Design class at CalArts. Made up of a marimba, a self-plucking drone device, and five bells—all recycled objects found in the electronics junkyard—Tammy stands 14 feet tall and is certainly nothing like my dearly-beloved Rosie.
The program consisted of music in the North Indian style, beginning with a sparse call-and-response piece, Digital Sankirna, demonstrating the performer-robot interaction, in which the robots seemed to learn and play more as the piece progressed. Amazing was the robot’s sense of restraint—it seemed to intuitively know just when to release. Accompanied by Ajay Kapur’s ESitar and Curtis Bahn’s most beautiful EDilruba, it made for an arrestingly haunting opening. A second highlight was the appearance of the Ustad Aashish Kahn, considered one of the greatest living sarodists in the world, for a performance of the an Indian raga Shivranjani. Finally, the dance of the dalem, in the Balinese masked-dance tradition, concluded the program, complete with five gamelan players, the Reyong Bot, and the dancing white-masked king.
So maybe we haven’t yet advanced artificial intelligence to the point where robots are self-actualizing, but after watching KarmetiK, I feel that we are frighteningly close. This is more than a simple case of deus ex machina. Music is one of mankind’s most primitive forms of communication, fastening us together on the most gut level. The technology powerful enough to create a robot that can tap into the human psyche on that basic plane may be the great equalizer between man and machine, and that is a loaded possibility. Rosie is with us, certainly more than we might have known.
- By Helen Kearns
To see the full calendar of upcoming shows at REDCAT, pleaseclick here.
I saw Riverdance in Dublin, Ireland during the summer of 1998, and the enthusiasm I had for it has stayed with me ever since. My family even bought a VHS tape of the performance and we played it on Saturday mornings to see who could best pretend they knew the steps. There was something infectious about this show—Riverdance rose to fame at exponential speeds. The production became a cultural obsession and its principal dancer, Michael Flatley, a household name since it premiered in 1995. Riverdance brought something to audiences that was completely new, yet familiar. Some had seen local teenage girls hop around in green skirts with ribbons in their hair and call it Irish dance, but nobody had seen traditional Irish step dance like this. It was powerful. It was technical perfection. It was sexy. And for the first time, it was showcased on a world stage. Now, fifteen years after its premier altered the world opinion of Irish dance, the Pantages Theater in Hollywood is the LA stop on the show’s farewell tour.
According to Celtic legend, Irish music owes its strong emphasis on rhythm to the Druids. Centuries later, the English occupation of Ireland in the 1700s resulted in the oppression of many Irish customs. Ireland’s national dance therefore adopted the stiff upper body in honor of the oppression of many Irish cultural outlets including dance, language, and song. Bill Whelan’s original score for Riverdance draws from ancient Druid tribal musical structures but is also enhanced by the commanding sound that comes from the tapping of the dancers. During Wednesday’s performance of Riverdance, the legacy of strong and intricate rhythm was apparent; the Pantages Theater was blissfully deafening.
The show, although primarily focused on Irish dance, provides for a well-rounded experience and is anything but a mere dance recital. Dance segments are interspersed with musical performances, notably the crystal clear voice of soloist Laura Yanez, and the distinctive sound of the uillean pipes played by Declean Masterson. The dances are also meaningfully structured. Many are linked to historical events, including the potato famine when the Irish-immigrant influence in America was explored. The dance-off between the Riverdance Tappers and the Riverdance Dance Troupe was most certainly a highlight, although Rocio Montoya’s fiery flamenco performance and the Moscow Folk Ballet Company’s impressive acrobatic display aren’t to be overlooked.
Riverdance draws much of its appeal from its star power. The show’s two lead dancers, Craig Ashurst and Melissa Convery, are captivating in their individual ability and in their chemistry onstage. However, when the fleet of dancers joins together, they perform in seemingly impossible technical unison, and produce a resounding dramatic effect that can only result from strength in numbers.
Riverdance hasn’t lost its step in fifteen years, and now more than ever is the time to remember why you loved it then, or to encounter it for the first time. Experiencing the energy live is stunning and impactful, but be forewarned: you may be spotted after the show hopping and shamelessly fluttering your way back to your car.
-by Brittany Krasner
Riverdance is playing daily at the Pantages Theater through January 24th. Visittheir websitefor ticket information.
The way you start off a new year is very important to the way the new year ends up going for you. At least that’s what they say. Put their theory into practice with some of January’s most promising arts events in our fair city – would you like your 2010 to look a little more Bond-like? Would you rather it looked a little more experimental than your 2009? It’s so tempting to answer those questions with: there’s an app for that, but really your city has got what it takes to kick off your new year just the way you’d like.
Mr. Bond
Friday, January 1 is not likely to be your most shining and perky day. That doesn’t mean you can’t start on a sleek, technologically advanced, Bond-like bend – from 7:30pm at the Egyptian Theatre there’s a double feature of Dr. No and You Only Live Twice. You may not be at your sharpest on Friday, but you’ll soon make a better Bond than Mr. Connery. If you’re less than interested in leaving your house that day, worry not. Saturday evening (January 2) from 7:00pm, they’ll be screening Goldfinger and Thunderball – if you don’t have a love/hate relationship with villains after a weekend like that, you’re not cut out to be the next Mr. Bond. And that’s no way to start a new year.
Please click here for the Egyptian Theatre’s full January 2010 calendar.
Barely There
At Sam Lee Gallery, just near Dodger Stadium, you’ll find local artist Jeff Gambill’s exhibit “Barely There,” on through January 23. His paintings have this generally zen, colorful feeling that convey the transient, transitional message he’s going for. Fresh from a trip to Japan, you’ll definitely see an East Asian influence in each of his works. They don’t scream out at you, but they definitely make you want to look closer. And what better message than looking closer at something that doesn’t shock and awe for a new year? Time to delve a little deeper, kids.
The Sam Lee Gallery is located at 990 N. Hill Street #190. Please call (323) 227-0275 or click here for more information.
New Year, New Music
It’s so easy to fall into an all-Mozart (or all-Beyonce) rut. Take some time in January 2010 to break out of it. It may not last the whole year, but at least you can say you tried. On Saturday, January 16 at the First Presbyterian Church in Santa Monica,Jacaranda invites you to discover Thomas Ades, Benjamin Britten, Peter Maxwell Davies, George Benjamin, and others. The concert, called Licorice and Rosin (“licorice” is a slang term for clarinet and rosin is a solid form of resin used on string instruments), will present some of Britain’s more exciting contemporary music from the last twenty-five years.
If a church is the last place you’d like to be, Monday Evening Concerts at the Zipper Concert Hall at the Colburn School kicks off 2010 on January 11 at 8:00pm with a concert called “Mostly Californian.” Featuring compositions by Clint McCallum, Luciano Chessa, Michael Pisaro, and others, you will hear sounds of contemporary California. (No, that doesn’t include woeful cries for our current economic situation.) The composers in question present lyrical, theatrical works that won’t sound like anything else you’ve heard before.
Please click here for more information about Jacaranda. Alternatively, click here for information about Monday Evening Concerts.
Soundtrack for a Revolution
The Grammy Museum just celebrated their first birthday – still haven’t been? Monday, January 11 at 7:00pm they’re presenting Reel to Reel: Soundtrack for a Revolution, a documentary that looks at the American civil rights movement and the unparalleled soundtrack that went along with it. Filled with archive footage, interviews with civil rights leaders, and a soundtrack of freedom songs sung by modern day R&B, Hip Hop, and Soul legends like Joss Stone, Wyclef Jean, The Roots, and John Legend. Monday’s screening will be followed by a panel discussion chock full of everyone you’d like to get advice from for a soulful 2010 – Danny Glover, filmmakers Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman, producer Dylan Nelson, and music producer Corey Smyth.
If you still haven’t felt the holiday spirit this year, you’re a little late on the uptake. The weather isn’t helping much – listening to “White Christmas” as you peel off your unnecessary scarf, for example, doesn’t encourage drinking hot chocolate and singing carols. Well, where the weather disappoints (in a way), our fair city’s art scene comes to the rescue.
The quintessential ballet experience known far and wide as The Nutcracker is upon us again and Los Angeles Ballet’s production will be on view at Royce Hall and Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center in the coming weeks. Click here to check out our behind the scenes look at what goes into such a magical production as theirs with Sugar Plum Fairies, Snow Flakes, Fighting Mice, and Princes to delight your child’s (and your inner child’s) every whim.
Musically, there’s nowhere that does the holiday season like the LA Philharmonic. On Sunday, December 20, you can warm up those vocal chords for a Messiah Sing-Along with the Los Angeles Master Chorale. Then on Tuesday, December 22 at 8:00pm, they’re presenting Holidays with Sweet Honey in the Rock – aka not your mama’s holiday songs, followed by Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s A Creole Christmas on Wednesday, December 23 at 8:00pm. Those are also, not your mama’s holiday songs. Unless your mama is Creole. If you’re at a loss for what to do on New Year’s Eve, spend it with the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy at Disney Hall.
Not everything that puts you in the holiday spirit has to scream Santa Claus, little elves, and red ribbons. There are some films that put a smile on your face regardless of the time of year and two of them are on view at the Egyptian Theatre on Saturday, December 26 – maybe to take your mind off the family dysfunction from the night before. Singin’ In The Rain and An American in Paris make up the double feature starting at 7:30pm.
Did we mention that Christmas can also be funny? The Largo at the Coronet has an All Star comedy show on Monday, December 21 at 9pm benefiting St. Jude’s Christmas Charity. It can also be whimsical if you get yourself to Royal/T in Culver City. Now through December 31, their Winter Wonderland pop up shop
Enlightenment comes in many forms, especially in Los Angeles.Depending on the weather, the day of the week, or the current passing trend, enlightenment can be found in a yoga class, in a martini shaker, or at the movies.Where some need to sweat out their worries on a treadmill, others are of the school of thought that meditation, silence, and breathing are the ticket.Personally, one thing that works every time is good music, played loud and up close.I’m not talking about the ‘jump on your bed while listening to Pearl Jam’ kind of loud and up close, I’m talking about the kind of music that moves you to your core – Yo-Yo Ma on the violin or Ravi Shankar on the sitar, for example.
This weekend at the Broad Stage, you’ll find another musician bringing enlightenment in bulk – Rajeev Taranath.One of the world’s leading Sarod players, Taranath will grace the stage on Saturday evening with tabla virtuoso Abhiman Kaushal for a performance guaranteed to shift your perspective for the better.The Sarod is a stringed instrument similar to the sitar that has long been used in classical Indian music, while the tabla is a classical Indian drum that has been featured in both traditional and popular music around the world.
What’s more is… Fine Arts LA has got tickets for you!The lucky winner of today’s Extra! Extra! raffle will win tickets to see Rajeev and Abhiman enlighten Santa Monica on Saturday night at the Broad Stage at 7:30pm.Some Extra! Extra! details you’ll need to remember: by entering into this raffle, you’re also eligible to win the next three (3!) raffles!All we need is your first name, last name, and email address and voila – you’re a newly enlightened guru!
(Click here if you don’t want to risk it and you’re just gonna buy your own tickets.)
As you sneak around the grandiose Walt Disney Conert Hall to find the hidden door to REDCAT, you almost feel like you know something that concertgoers heading in to hear Brahms don’t.When you slip into the space, that you secretly consider an artistic speakeasy, what you’re hoping to hear is something that will get conversations flowing and inspire you in an esoteric way that only a contemporary artist can – no offense, Beethoven.
Ana Cervantes is the perfect candidate to perform at REDCAT.A Mexican-American mix, Cervantes plays piano with the same gusto and fervor that the forthcoming Gustavo Dudamel puts toward conducting – perhaps it’s a Latin thing.She has performed works by Mexican composers throughout the US and Cuba and can be seen at REDCAT on Wednesday evening at 8:30pm performing her Rumor de Paramo.Rumor is a solo concert featuring seventeen pieces inspired by Juan Rulfo who, in 1955, changed the face of Latin American literature with his Pedro Paramo.
With composers that run the gamut from Englishman Paul Barker to Spain’s Tomas Marco, the concert will be as eccentric as you’d hope without going too far.Rulfo’s story alone is a magical-realist look at tragic social and family histories; your narrators are ghosts.This is the kind of concert that will have you saying things like “I always head to REDCAT for the best new music,” or “there are so few places in LA that will support this kind of fresh experimentation,” or “that’s so REDCAT.”See you Wednesday, connoisseur.
Ana Cervantes will perform her Rumor de Paramo at REDCAT on Wednesday, September 30 at 8:30pm.For more information, please call (213) 237-2800 or click here.
You’ll be hard pressed to find a culture more bent on celebrating every moment than Indian culture.Think back to pretty much any Bollywood movie and you’ll remember the minute the man simply lays eyes on his love interest, the entire city seems to break into song.The jubilee only heightens with every step he takes closer to closing the deal – when her father gives his blessing, for example, the entire family suddenly emerges to sing about destiny and overcoming the trials of love and marriage.Their music can be best described as just as colorful as a Holi Festival.
Malkit Singh, a singer so popular you can consider him (alongside Ravi Shankar) a musical ambassador to India, knows just how to celebrate with his rhythmic, gyrating, exotic sounds and a stage full of beautiful, sari-covered women dancing to the beat.Tomorrow night at the Hollywood Bowl, transport yourself into a world of curries and bindis with their India Calling featuring performances by Malkit Singh , Ravi Shankar and his daughter Anoushka, Rhythm of Rajasthan, and Kailash Kher’s Kailasa as well as a performance by Yogen’s Bollywood Step Dance Troupe.The infectious, hypnotic sounds of celebration will have you on your feet learning to bhangra in no time.They say, the rule of thumb to picking it up quick is: with one hand you pat the dog, while with the other you screw in a light bulb. Best of luck!
India Calling! is tomorrow night, Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 7:00pm at the Hollywood Bowl.For more information, please call (323) 850-2000 or click here.
It’s very rare that you find a native Angeleno.Whenever I meet someone and tell them that I was born and raised here, I get a cocked eyebrow almost as if to say “are you sure?”In the same way that when I finally meet another native, we instantly share a common bond, like we’ve suffered the ups and downs of the city together.As much as we natives joke about tourists on Hollywood Blvd. and Midwest transplants coming here to be a star, it is those people who (for better or worse) create the cultural makeup of the city and often; its those transplants that seem more at home here than us natives.
Case in point, Pink Martini.Hailing from Portland, Oregon, the “little orchestra” of eleven musicians has an old-Hollywood vibe that you’re hard pressed to find outside places like Musso & Franks.Their worldly, lounge-y, Hollywood-in-the-70s feel fits so perfectly in this city that it seems unfair that we can’t claim them as ours!Returning to the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday, September 19, Pink Martini brings with them a Copacabana style and a classical technique.If you’re unfamiliar with the Martini, listen extra careful for songs like “Let’s Never Stop Falling in Love,” “Dansez-vous,” and “Donde Estas, Yolanda?”.It makes you wonder how long one has to live in LA to be considered a local.They’ve been performing with the LA Philharmonic for nearly ten years now… How much longer before we can just pretend they’re one of us?
Pink Martini performs at the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday, September 19 at 8pm.For more information or tickets, please call (323) 850-2000 or click here.
We have some music for your ears! The GRAMMY Museum has generously donated a pair of tickets to tonight’s screening of Poncho Sanchez at the Montreux. This film is part of a collaboration between the Downtown Film Festival and the GRAMMY Museum to bring a film festival dedicated to music documentaries. Be the fifth person to email us the answer to this question:
In what Los Angeles bordering city did Poncho Sanchez first discover his love of the congas?
And those tickets are yours! Send your name and the correct answer to: info@fineartsla.com. We are waiting!
Anyone who’s spent even a small amount of time on the African continent has a good idea of what people mean when they use the phrase “African nostalgia.” Even if you haven’t traveled there, it’s easy to get a back-to-our-roots sense from the culture, art, music, and design available to us in the US. Everything from HBO’s “No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency” to Youssou Ndour’s documentary I Bring What I Love shows this simple side of life, but not in a melancholy way. Instead, we see this beautiful, rhythmic, traditional lifestyle in which tribal differences are as often respected as they are fought over. A primary part of what we know, culturally, about the continent is the music of Angelique Kidjo – a singer who hails from Benin and whose voice sooths as it entices. 
I may be living in the “age of technology” here in 2010, with the smart phones and the talking GPS devices and the iTunes auto-DJ always at my disposal. We’ve all become pretty accustomed to—and spoiled by—this kind of “smart” technology that’s taking over at such a rapid rate. But, to this day, when I hear “robot technology” or “artificial intelligence,” I still think of Rosie—the sweet, lovable, wheel-legged house-bot from The Jetsons. And that’s just what I was expecting when I attended the 
I saw 
The way you start off a new year is very important to the way the new year ends up going for you. At least that’s what they say. Put their theory into practice with some of January’s most promising arts events in our fair city – would you like your 2010 to look a little more Bond-like? Would you rather it looked a little more experimental than your 2009? It’s so tempting to answer those questions with: there’s an app for that, but really your city has got what it takes to kick off your new year just the way you’d like.
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