Old School

Jazz remains one of the few indigenous, American art forms, in that nothing quite like it ever existed before Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton started mixing up ragtime with the blues in an early 1900’s city called New Orleans. And to understand the history of jazz, as well as its incredible influence on our culture, is to understand the history of America and American music from slavery on up. Simply put, no artist you listen to today could exist without jazz. Which is why the genre makes its sudden flares of resurgence from time to time, and why you can still walk into most hip coffee shops around the city—notably, the Downbeat Café on Alvarado—and find a slick laptop-er or two subconsciously tapping their heels to the likes of Duke Ellington or Count Basie.

This Wednesday, July 28^th at 8:00 PM at the Hollywood Bowl, jazz proves its not dead with the internationally renowned Count Basie Orchestra—still going after eighty years. Known for popularizing the Kansas City-style of big band jazz, as well as initiating some of the greatest artists in history (including Billy Holiday, Jo Jones, and Charlie Parker), Basie, himself, passed away in 1984, but his band plays on under different direction and with a regenerating cast of musicians. The current Orchestra doesn’t strictly adhere to its Kansas City roots (i.e. rhythmic riffs under improvised solos), but instead incoporates more of the East coast, neo-classisist style of big band jazz, with complex arrangements by director Bill Hughes.

That’s not to say, however, that such Count classics as “One O’Clock Jump” or “April in Paris” won’t be bouncing through the Bowl on Wednesday—along with the Dave Holland Big Band, the Dave Douglas Big Band, and yes, maybe you. Due to the overwhelming response of our last giveaways, FineArtsLA.com is once again raffling off two tickets to the Hollywood Bowl to see the Count Basie Orchestra live at 8:00 PM. Just enter your first and last name into the form below, as well as your e-mail address, and you are automatically entered into the running to win not just Wednesday night’s tickets, but also the next three FineArtsLA.com giveaways. So brush up on your two-step, and dust off those dancing shoes; even if you don’t win our contest, you can still buy tickets here.

I’m about to move neighborhoods in Los Angeles. I realize this information is of interest to very few people, and even then, of very little interest. But for the past two years, I’ve lived in the USC area, about two blocks away from the historic Union Theatre—also known at the Velaslavasay Panorama—and I’ve never once stepped inside. I’ve tried. When I first moved in and took my inaugral expedition around the hood, I couldn’t help but gravitate toward the building. It’s vastly out-of-place, an artifact from another era dropped in-between a bodega and some low-rent housing (and in fact, it is from another era: it was built sometime in the 1910’s and operated for many years as a venue of multiple uses, including a playhouse, a silent-film theatre, and a meeting hall for the Tile Layers Union Local #18). When I tried to enter beneath the grand, old-fashioned marquee, however, it was closed. Ever since, it’s just been that mysterious buidling (sometimes aglow) that I drive by nearly every day, and have yet to go in—either because it’s closed or I have no reason. And now I’m about to move.

Fortunately, I have one last chance. This weekend, starting on Friday, but running on Saturdays as well, for five weeks only, the Velaslavasay Panorama opens its doors at 8:00 PM to present the unique and aptly located live performance of The Grand Moving Mirror of California. What is it? Good question. It’s a series of moving painted scenes, which encircle the theatre like a long scroll being rolled out around the audience, and depict the journeys of early American settlers attempting to reach California during the Gold Rush of 1849. Using live narration taken from an actual 19^th century script, along with musical accompaniment and radio-play sound-effects, the show celebrates and revives a 130-year-old mode of entertainment that simply shouldn’t be missed.

Not bad for my last weekend in the neighborhood.

- By Joshua Morrison

For more information about the Union Theatre, the Panorama, or panoramas in general, please visit www.panoramaonview.org, or call 213-746-2166.

On hearing a name like Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin, there are a number of typical silent film songs that pop into your head – mostly of the slapstick, bumbling, parodying varietal.  Films from the twenties, that roaring decade before the era of the “talkies” with flickering motion pictures of flappers and hapless hopeless romantic gentlemen who can’t quite seem to get anything right, were accompanied by live orchestras in the cinema.  The musicians would play upbeat, complex melodies that would stick in your head as exactly what Charlie Chaplin sounded like when he’d accidentally let another gentleman caller intercept a bouquet of flowers just before presenting them to a lady-friend.   Or they’d play downtrodden songs to suit a dejected Buster Keaton as he walks away from a car that’s inexplicably fallen apart beneath him.

The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra has long been a fan of remembering those silent film orchestras of the past.  They host an annual Silent Film concert allowing audiences to reminisce the golden days of silent film by screening one or two and providing pitch-perfect accompaniment.   This year, LACO presents two silent, short films: Disney’s Alice’s Wild West Show and Buster Keaton’s iconic film, The Cameraman.  Both represent the joy of filmmaking in that era – a time when newcomers to the cinema actually believed a train was making its way into the theatre and evacuated with great speed in self-defense.

With conductor Timothy Brock at the helm, the LA Chamber Orchestra will play a new work, by Mr. Brock himself, to accompany The Cameraman and the original music that accompanied Alice’s Wild West Show all those years ago by Alexander Rannie. Because who would Buster Keaton be without that wily, horn-heavy soundtrack we all came to know and love?

Performing Sunday, May 23 at Royce Hall at 6:30pm, the concert just wouldn’t be complete without, well, you!  That’s right, welcome to our latest Extra! Extra! ticket giveaway.

A few things of note: by entering into this contest, you’re automatically entered to win our next three giveaways.  (We know, you’re welcome.) All we need is your first name, last name, and email address and voila – is that a newsboy cap you’re wearing?

(Click here if you think contests are for wussies and you’d rather buy your own tickets.)

I am one of the few lucky Angelenos to live near a metro stop, so I was able to catch the Red Line straight down to Union Station to attend the Watts Village Theater Company’s site-specific performance piece: “Meet Me @ Metro” last Sunday. In the first car I took while going to the performance a crazed woman with a suitcase was dancing and babbling unintelligibly for three fascinated children and their terrified mother. I changed cars and found myself surrounded by a group of long-haired jubilant tourists, cracking jokes at the top of their lungs about Los Angeles to anyone who would listen. Through both of these experiences I avoided all eye contact, set my face in an uninviting frown, and shrank into my chair: tricks I’d learned from four years riding the NYC subway.

At Union Station I joined the throng of expectant “Meet me @ Metro” audience members at the west entrance. We were quickly wrangled into a circle by a company of horn-honking cops circling us on tiny red tricycles and handing out yellow sticky-note tickets. With so many characters riding the subway on any normal day, it took me a minute to realize that the faux cops were part of the show and not just a bunch of lunatics. I perked up out of my guarded public transit shell as soon as I knew the show had begun.

At the center of the circle, the Watts Village Theater artistic director, Guillermo Avilés-Rodríguez, explained that the mission of this show was to redefine the Watts community as a welcoming place and to literally bring people there by using theatre. And that is what they did.

Over the next two and a half hours, twenty or so performers lead fifty audience members through the bowels of the metro, on and off of trains, out into neighborhoods, and finally to a field at the feet of the Watts Towers. We were like a mob of Hansel and Gretels following bread crumbs of narrative, history, poetry, and dance, scattered along our route through an unknown wilderness. If theatre is supposed to take you to places you’ve never been, then this show did. Physically.

More than the performances themselves, we were motivated on by the encouraging smiles and sheer effort the performers put into this undertaking. “The most amazing thing about this show is that we’re doing it,” said Mr. Aviles-Rodriguez when we began, and he was right.

The actual performances at each location were confusing, hard to hear, and underwhelming in quality. The 7^th and Metro Center stop just seemed to be an excuse for the MooDoo Puppet Theater to have a man on stilts hand out postcards for their show. In Pershing Square I was struck by the irony that the audience was huddled around a performer ranting like a homeless person about loving ShangriL.A., while we turned our backs to several actual homeless people on the edge of the circle who were asking what was going on.

But whether the performances were ‘Broadway quality’ or not was beside the point. Back at Union Station I had let my guard down and allowed myself to see more than just where I was headed. As we traveled from station to station, I saw more art in the world around me than I had ever noticed before. Los Angeles, and the Metro specifically, is full of murals, statues, and installation art that I had always walked by with indifference. Now each piece was a part of a show, and it was if a spotlight was shining on everything from Joyce Kozloff ‘s film mural at the 7^th & Metro stop to the music of the Watts ice cream truck playing behind the performers song. And maybe I wouldn’t have seen the inhabitants of Pershing square or their plight to participate in the show if I hadn’t been brought there with more open eyes.

There is so much beauty, humor, art and humanity around us every day here in the second largest city in the United States, and it took a troupe of intrepid performers taking their spectacle out of the theater and onto the street to help me see it. I thought back to my experiences on the metro before the show began and wondered how I would have experienced them differently if I had approached them with curiosity rather than fear.

The Watts Village Theater Company and their collaborators hope to make “Meet me @ Metro” an annual performance festival. If they are lucky enough to make this happen, I encourage you to take the trip. Until then, as you make your daily commute around town, imagine a spotlight once in a while showing you art where you least expected it. I promise you it will make for a much more enjoyable ride.

- By Stephanie Carrie

For more information about The Watts Village Theater Company, please visit www.wattsvillagetheatercompany.com.

We start off with an English gentleman.  He’s on stage, with his requisite pipe, telling us of the dull and boring days in a rented flat in central London that drove him to seek entertainment in a place as unlikely as the theatre.  He treks off to see red curtains pulled back revealing a perfectly comic duo in only their first role of the evening: as host and the night’s main act, Mr. Memory.  This is the beginning of “Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps”, on now at the Ahmanson Theatre.

This show is not for the theatre purist easily offended by a lack of the ever-elusive “fourth wall.”  This is, instead, one of the funniest, most inventive, self-reflective plays I’ve seen in a long while.  With a cast of only four, the players cover many a persona often by simply changing their hat while still on stage.  The special effects were nowhere to be seen, either, with characters holding out and shaking their own coats to simulate the wind.  Various accents abounded as each actor moved between his or her alternate personalities – Clair Brownwell’s initial character, Annabella Schmidt, had a very German accent (pronouncing “involved” in all sorts of incomprehensible ways) before she switched to become the blonde Scottish woman, Pamela, out to get our leading man, Ted Deasy.

Deasy played only one man – the clever, but wanted Richard Hannay – and was a delight from the moment he stepped on stage.  He mastered a dry, elongated British accent and paired it with a quick-paced rapport, making the play seem almost like His Girl Friday, as directed by Mr. Hitchcock.  With references to Hitchcock’s films throughout, from a scene with Deasy running away from planes in silhouette a la North by Northwest to a sneaky puppet that made Mr. Hitchcock’s iconic cameo for him, “The 39 Steps” is a comical tour de force.

What made the show spectacular was the work of Eric Hissom and Scott Parkinson, cast as Man #1 and Man #2, respectively.  They went from train ticket takers to cops on the hunt for a murderer to inn-keepers to German spies (and their wives) to on-stage “special effects” coordinators taunting Deasy and Brownell to the end.  The Men (numbers 1 and 2) interacted with each other seamlessly, moving in perfect sync when necessary and telling one another when they’d forgotten to change their hat again and they were acting as the wrong character.

Perhaps the scene that prepared the audience best for what we were about to experience came toward the start when Annabella Schmidt, who had talked her way into staying at Mr. Hannay’s flat for the night, explained her predicament.  She told Hannay that she was being followed by detectives and that they would be there now beneath a street lamp near his apartment.  As Hannay went to pull back the blind to see for himself, Man #1 and Man #2 rushed on stage holding a prop street lamp.  They set it up and stood beneath it, their trench coat collars pulled up and black hats pulled down.  Quick-witted with a hefty side of film noir, vintage international intrigue, and absolutely no magical seamlessness between scenes.  “Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps” tells you what its going to do as it does it, but in the funniest way possible – just make sure you brush up on your Hitchcock.

“Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps” runs now through May 16 at the Ahmanson Theatre downtown at the Music Center.  Please click here or call (213) 972-4400 for more information.

We may be geographically far from, well, everywhere in the world, but that doesn’t mean we can’t keep up with all the arts endeavors across every which pond.  So here’s a bit of news (for the very serious and elite readers) and a bonus round of what’s going on in LA that really deserves your attention (for those who care about little outside LA county).

First, a stop in Paris at the Petit Palais.  The Parisian museum brings to the fore the artistic achievements of none other than Yves Saint Laurent.  Curated by Florence Muller and Farid Chenoune, the exhibit, called Yves Saint Laurent Retrospective features gowns, menswear, some of the designer’s treasured personal items used in creative pursuits, and it highlight themes used throughout the many collections in Saint Laurent’s illustrious career.  One ticket to France, please! {Global Post}

Onto Italy.  In Milan, our very own Placido Domingo’s Operalia competition has commenced.  Founded in 1993, Domingo’s opera competition is meant to find the cream of the crop amongst new talent in opera.  The singers represent not only a range of vocal categories (from coloratura soprano to the lowest bass), but also an array of countries around the world.  The competition ends May 2 (this Saturday), so you’ll have a new vocalist’s career to follow starting Sunday, May 3rd.  We have a feeling it will be meteoric.  {Culture Monster}

Not to shower the French with too much attention, though they don’t mind, Sotheby’s has made quite the announcement prior to the upcoming auction season.  The storied (and once thought lost) private collection of legendary Parisian art dealer Amrboise Vollard is set to meet the auction block.  His career was spent promoting such up-and-comers as Picasso, Cezanne, and Renoir and Vollard’s collection includes not only paintings, but such enticing items as prints, drawings, and artist books.  The sale will be held in London on June 22, so brush up on your British colloquialisms.  {ArtInfo}

Back at home, there is much to celebrate.  Dig into your pockets just a bit to buy yourself a ticket to the Architecture and Design Museum’s official Grand Opening!  For $75, you’ll mingle with a veritable who’s who of the architecture and design world in LA at the reception tomorrow night (April 27), (hint: you can also find them anywhere from Father’s Office to Tar Pit on weeknights), check out the first exhibit, and bid on things at the silent auction.  {A+D Museum}  Also, if you haven’t uploaded his schedule into your iCal already, Gustavo Dudamel has returned to the LA Phil – he’s conducting pretty regularly from now through May 8 on a number of concerts all worthy of splurging for tickets.  {LA Phil} This is your last chance to see LACMA’s exhibit Renoir in the 20th Century.  The exhibit closes May 9. {LACMA} Last, but certainly not least, turns out that parodies of Wagner and his Ring Cycle abound.  LA Times’ Culture Monster shows us the best of the best. {Culture Monster}

Until I got to LA, the world of burlesque was somewhat foreign to me. I had a vague notion of 1920’s showgirls doing Bob Fosse numbers for over-excited guys in trench-coats and fedoras, a lot of nasally yammering and two-note whistles. But even this general notion of burlesque was gleaned from Looney Tunes and old movies, not real life.

Then in LA, I realized there was an actual burgeoning scene, filled with human beings, or at least the Hollywood equivalent. It seemed everywhere I went, there was some amateur poster or postcard hanging up, featuring a scantily clad woman in heavy make-up, teasing me to visit the “Saturday Night Follies” or “Beatrice’s Boudoir.” Thus I developed a kind of adverse reaction to the ad saturation. I felt these so-called burlesque girls were simply suburban strippers in disguise, lacking the fortitude to go the whole way. To me, it was post-feminism imploding in on itself.

Still I hadn’t yet seen a burlesque show with my own two eyes, and had very little idea what it entailed. So this past Sunday night, I decided to get up off my hypocritical, ivory-stained tuchus, and check out “Red Snapper’s Sassy, Classy Burlesque Revue” at The Sherry Theatre in North Hollywood.

I held some hesitation over whether to bring a notebook or not. Normally I always bring a notebook to any event I review, whether it be a gallery or a film screening, but the idea of taking notes while a girl is showing off her tasseled breasts seemed somehow creepy to me. In the end, I decided to take notebook, but keep it on the down-low.

Right from the start of “Red Snapper’s Sassy, Classy Burlesque Revue” I realized how ignorant I’d been. There was a giant, inflatable bottle of Absinthe set up on the stage, three guys in sharp suits and slicked-back hair sitting behind me—each toting a bottle of champagne and going by the monikers of Frederick O’Hollywood and Patrick the Bank Robber. Burlesque, it seemed, was a kind of costume party, a carnival, a renaissance fair for those who preferred jazz with their coffee. And everyone was happy.

The first performer, one Mr. Snapper (aka Andrew Moore), the emcee of the night, got things going with a cute ukulele rendition of Irving Berlin’s “Blue Skies,” pitch-perfect trumpet scat-singing and all.  But in burlesque, there’s no such thing as cute—or even perfect—without raunch. So Mr. Snapper told a dirty joke before bringing up the premiere dancer: How does a college man propose? Answer: You’re having a what?

Bebe Firefly, the first lady as it were, was the reason for the inflatable Absinthe bottle. She was dressed as a dolled-up green fairy, the kind that supposedly pops up every once in a while under the influence of the nationally illicit spirit. To the tune of a jazzy, speed-guitar riff, Bebe proceeded to mix a glass of alcohol with sugar on stage, consume it, and promptly shake her hips and bust until all that was left was a thong and some tassels. The crowd, both men and women, all hooting and hollering, loved it.

Next up was Iona Vibrator, donning an elaborate, Asian/New Orleans fusion outfit, which came off in a similarly ritualized fashion to that of Bebe’s. After her: Ms. Jessabelle Thunder, who’s David Lynch-esque number made me realize the hypnotizing effect of such dances. It’s mostly just simple back and forth, some turns and winks thrown in, but for some reason it’s just enough to keep you swaying along with them.

The show’s producer and name-sake, Red Snapper, arrived on stage next, ushering the audience into the second half of the night—the more experienced girls. Snapper was obviously a crowd favorite, more than comfortable strutting around in a pair of garters and stockings, doing a kind of naughty 50’s housewife parody. The supposed female empowerment associated with modern burlesque became more apparent in Snapper’s performance. She possessed a definite control over her own teases, an excited familiarity with her routine that translated into a kind of feminine pride.

Panama Red followed, with Costa Brava not far behind, each showing off their own expertise with unique additions to the basic ritual of the formalized strip-tease. Whether it was Panama Red’s jungle-themed chest-shake, or Costa Brava’s feathered fan dance, these girls clearly knew what they were doing, and found ways to make playful what could become tiresome.

The show-stopper, both literally and figuratively, was Evie Lovelle, the seeming celebrity of the group, appearing in her last performance before a European tour. As she came out from backstage, wearing a tight corset which practically choked her tiny, tiny waist, the audience went nuts. And I could see why. She had long, black hair; gorgeous, pale skin; and a knowing smile that’s typically reserved for starlets of the silent film era. She’ll fit in just perfect in Europe.

Leaving the show, I talked to two female members of the audience, both of whom expressed interest in trying out burlesque themselves. They said they appreciated how the medium applauded real women, and how even conventionally “flawed” body-types could be made beautiful and powerful. As for me, I’m still not quite convinced of the transformative value in burlesque—after all, every number ends with what’s known as the “final reveal”—but I will say that I had a fun time. And as it tuns out, my note-taking didn’t feel that creepy at all. I suppose that’s because nothing seems that creepy about burlesque. It’s a celebration, rather than a perversion, and for that, I’ll hoot and holler with the rest of ‘em.

Photos by Holly Go Darkly

To find out about any and all upcoming burlesque shows in Los Angeles, please visit www.losangeles.Burlesque411.com.

Last week I had a skunk-off in my driveway. There I was, just trying to make it home, the Los Feliz Blvd traffic behind me and a night curled up with X-Files reruns and a glass of two-buck waiting, when I met my match. Two skunks caught in a deadlock in the middle of the driveway. A fence to my left. A house to my right. Nowhere to go but straight down. I stopped. They stopped. One ran. The other looked my way. She raised her tail into the air, where it plumed above her like a hot curl of smoke from a flame.

“Hey, little girl,” I said, trying to sound friendly.

She was silent. She waited.

“Ummm?” I backed down the driveway. I walked into the street. “I’m over here, now, see? You can go over to the bushes, where it’s safe. Where I’m safe…”

She stared.

Some neighbors walked by, watching my awkward hesitation. I was carrying an armload of groceries, by the way. “Heh, skunks,” I told them.

They stared.

I approached her again. Her tail stretched higher. I retreated. It went on this way for another five minutes, until I decided to just go ahead and put the groceries down and have a cigarette on the curb. Admit defeat.

It worked! She left. Moments later the sound of a cat howling and a streak of white light across the lawn, but I was already shimmying to the door to that well-deserved two-buck.

If you’re looking for a moral here, sorry, there isn’t one. Except maybe try not to happen upon two skunks when they’re in the throes of some weird mating ritual in the middle of your driveway? I mean, obviously, circumstance can’t be avoided. What I’m trying to say, y’all, is it’s Spring!

Alright, so you already know how much I love spring, but let me give you another reason: It’s music season. After spending winter months hunkered down in dark studios recording new LPs, bands across the country are dusting off their tour vans and hitting the road in the name of that glorious American tradition: the Summer Tour.

LA will have no shortage of music to see this summer, and let this weekend stand testament to that. In the span of five days, you’ll have options at almost every venue in the city.

Wednesday, 4/21: Megafaun, Breathe Owl Breath, and Hi Ho Silver Oh! at the Echo.

If you don’t know Megafaun, find out quick. Bedroom folk-rock that rattles so hard but jangles so pretty that it’ll get you drunk before you can even think of saddling up. The night starts off with LA’s own Hi Ho Silver Oh! (there’s North Carolina blood in those boys, to be sure) and Michigan’s banjo-wielding-folksters Breathe Owl Breathe.

Thursday, 4/22: Grouper, John Wiese, Infinite Body, and Ilyas Ahmed at The Smell.

Even though you can’t drink in there anymore, The Smell is still, hands-down, one of LA’s best spaces to experience art in its rawest, all-ages form. Ilyas Ahmed opens with his spectral guitar workings, followed by the yearning drone of Infinite Body. John Weise will then bludgeon it all with his most excellent noise-scaping, leaving the hazy and healing ambiance of Grouper to dry your tears.

Friday, 4/23: +DOG+, Actuary, Bavab Bavab, Drum Jester Devotional, The New Brutalists, and Oscillator at Synchronicity Space.

Get yourself over to Sync Space. Right now. Art gallery by day, venue by night, this place has an event calendar that would put LACMA to shame. Friday night: Noise! Sadists and masochists alike: put your dancing shoes on.

Saturday, 4/24: Yoshitake Expe, matthewdavid, Samuel Partal, and Dead Western at Echo Curio.

The Echo Curio’s doing it just like Sync Space, the whole two sides, one coin thing, and they’re doing a darned good job. Seems a week doesn’t go by that I’m not over there, knee-deep in something good. Dead Western’s baritone psych-folk may seem weird, but it’ll only get weirder—and better—with the crunchy charm of matthewdavid and the delightful neuroverb of Samuel Partal. Yoshitake Expe, whose experimental guitar-noodlings can be found alongside the Boredoms and Keiji Haino, will finish with [insert many expletives here]. Period.

Sunday, 4/25: Aaron Dilloway + John Wiese, Damion Romero, Cleanse, Darksmith and Rale at Synchronicity Space.

They just don’t stop over there at Sync. Rale: newage (rhymes with sewage. I’m just quoting their Myspace). Darksmith: comedy-hop (universal appeal, in my opinion). Cleanse: Either trip-hop from Detroit or something else (If there’s this little info on him on the world wide web, you know it’ll be fresh). Damion Romero: Minnesota minimalism? (Ditto). John Wiese: need I repeat myself? (Yes. This man may be a god.) Aaron Dilloway: No better way to spend a Sunday (except, maybe, this).

I think the Dodgers season may have started, too. Hey! There’s the moral! Keep your eye on the ball, kid.

- By Helen Kearns

Wagnerite or not, the Ring Festival is upon us.  Let me explain.  If you haven’t heard, LA Opera spent $32 million on producing the ultimate Ring Festival that not only presents Richard Wagner’s infamous Ring Cycle, but also features an array of events, lectures, and concerts offering tons of things to do for German-loving Angelenos.  Starting this evening alone, one can find a visual exhibit on Maria Callas at the Italian Cultural Institute in Westwood, a Ring Cycle discussion panel chatting on “From Nietzsche to Star Wars: The Wagnerian Power of The Ring,” and at Los Angeles Conservancy, see the German influence on Los Angeles’ mid-20th-century landscape.  Who knew Wagner made such an impact on so many aspects of our lives?

There’s one truth I’ve yet to unveil.  I’m not really a Wagner fan.  Yes, Wagnerites, Tristan und Isolde is undeniably gorgeous and the famous aria at the end, “Liebestod,” is truly glorious.  But his Ring Cycle, which features four full-length operas from Das Rheingold to Gotterdammerung, is simply not my cup of tea.  Putting personal preference aside, though, LA Operas tour de force Ring Festival is a triumph of peering into what makes such an infamous piece of classical music tick.  There will be, over the course of the next few months (now through June 2010), lectures detailing Wagner and his influences paired with art exhibits, free film screenings “for opera lovers,” and of course, full length masterful productions of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.  In full.

The Cycle itself is four operas, each longer than the last.  There’s Das Rheingold and Die Walkure, which LA Opera produced during their 2008/2009 season and Siegfried and Gotterdammerung which both go up this season in June, finishing out the Cycle.  All four productions were designed by the controversial and avant-garde set director Achim Freyer and will be performed under the very accomplished tutelage of conductor James Conlon.

The Ring Festival is a huge accomplishment for the arts in Los Angeles.  Not only will it bring arts lovers of all shapes and sizes to our fair city, but it also derives its allure from many of LAs various attractions from food trucks (like Let’s Be Frank hotdogs) to the Hammer Museum and from LACMA to Griffith Park Observatory.  There’s rarely a better reason to cross the city in a German-and-opera-filled fury as there is now.

The show on at the Geffen Playhouse, Nightmare Alley, is also connected to the Ring Festival.  Running now through May 23, the show is based on the 1946 Gresham novel about the dark, wild world of “carnies, cons, and clairvoyants.”

The full schedule is about as long as a novel, proving again that LA Opera has gone above and beyond with this Festival.  Ticket prices range from free to $10 to $2000 (for really good front orchestra seats at the opera itself, calm thyself).

Regardless of my personal relationship with Mr. Wagner, when I say enjoy the show, I really do mean it. Really. Enjoy… Just make sure you bring your flask.

The Ring Festival has begun! Click here for more information on the Festival and click here for information on the Cycle itself. Click here to see the LA Times’ complete guide to the Ring Festival.

If you’ve never heard of Banksy, chances are you still know who he is—especially if you’ve ever traveled west on Melrose. His art has appeared all over the world, from Bristol, UK, where he got his start, to the Palestinian segregation wall in the West Bank. His striking and humorous images and slogans with their subversive flair is immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with his work. Despite his popularity, Banksy has managed to remain anonymous in order to protect himself from legal persecution—his identity is known to only a small handful of chosen trustees. This Monday, Banksy’s excursion out of the night and into the world of film will prove Banksy to be more than just a cleverly-tongued and craftily-handed stenciler.

The film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, is not just a retrospective of the birth of the underground graffiti-art scene in the 80s. It also follows the story of Thierry Guetta, the LA-transplant from France who serendipitously stumbled upon the graffiti-art scene in the late 80’s and captured hundreds of hours of video footage of the artists in action. Guetta, an obsessive-compulsive character who was compelled to video tape every moment of his daily life, discovered at a family reunion that his distant cousin was the graffiti artist Space Invader, and turned his camera towards the movement. What began as a mild curiosity quickly turned into a new obsession for Guetta. Under the auspices that he was making a documentary on the movement, he managed to befriend and document every big graffiti artist working at the time, accompanying them on their nighttime forays and neglecting his family and life in LA for the span of a decade. Finally, he met and gained the trust of the notorious Banksy, whose reputation for his shocking and dexterous work was by then world-wide. In a grand gesture of faith, Banksy allowed Guetta into a world that few had ever entered—Guetta was the first and only person that Banksy ever permitted to film his secretive exploits in an effort to permanently preserve on film his artwork which was usually destroyed by authorities upon its discovery.

After it became apparent that Guetta’s obsession with the graffiti movement was not actually a passion for filmmaking (he had never made a film in his life, but was the owner of a vintage boutique in Hollywood), Banksy convinced Guetta to hand over his footage and take it easy. He advised him to go back to LA, maybe do some graffiti art of his own, have a little show, have fun. Little did he know what monster his friendly suggestion would birth. Guetta returned to LA, named himself Mr. Brainwash, and in an explosion of self-promotion that would impress even Octo-Mom, launched the biggest solo exhibition of graffiti art the city had ever seen.

At this point, Banksy takes a breath. The movie is no longer about graffiti art, or this crazy guy Guetta—but about the nature of trust, of art itself, and of hype—and how Guetta managed to exploit and violate all three in his manic drive for affirmation. Guetta, in his crazed attempt either to please Banksy, or inflate his own ego, or get rich—it’s unclear—created a humongous body of work practically overnight. He managed to cut through all the channels that most artists have to navigate to become successful. He never developed a craft—he hired real artists to actualize the ideas in his head, most of which were cheap rip-offs of the artists he had followed for so long. He refinanced his house in order to afford the warehouse space where the exhibition took place, filled it with pretty things in a matter of days, and with a shrewd knack for publicity (perhaps where his true artistry lies), got the press—and the art world—on board. The result was a wild success commercially, but it resulted in the loss of all those friendships with artists he had befriended as their accomplice in graffiti for so many years.

The real clincher is that it’s not clear that Guetta has any clue that he may have breached some kind trust in his creation of Mr. Brainwash and subsequent pillaging of graffiti culture and imagery. Operating under the same oblivious self-congratulation that fuels so many of the taste-maker types in the LA bubble, Guetta actually believes his own hype. He maintains an attitude of pleased insouciance—“Life is Beautiful,” he sprays in pink paint on a brick wall moments before it is bulldozed—after all, he is well-known, much adored, and rich. And Banksy? His relationship with Guetta wasn’t a complete disappointment. He proves that his ability for turning a wall into a window reach far beyond his stenciling skills—let Exit Through The Gift Shop be a lasting reminder of that fact.

By Helen Kearns

Exit Through The Gift Shop opens this Friday, April 16th in selected theaters in the US. Check out the website for more information.