Leading Brazilian dance company Grupo Corpo will return to LA Performing Arts Center after 14 years for three performances May 2–4.The company whose name means ‘body group’ in Portuguese will present two works 21 and Gira which blend classical ballet, folk traditions and bold choreography.
The program opens with Pederneiras’ 1992 groundbreaking work 21, a ballet divided into three movements that weave the company’s 22 dancers into rhythmic and timbral combinations of the number 21. Featuring a score by Marco Antônio Guimarães, the choreography moves with precision with a series of mesmerizing movements that blend the energy of Brazilian folk dances with the formality of classical ballet. The 40-minute piece amplifies the unique sounds of Guimarães’ unusual instrumental composition which culminates in a colorful, dynamic finale.
For Gira Pederneiras immersed himself in the history and practices of Brazil’s Afro-Brazilian religions, particularly Umbanda, transforming the characteristic the powerful gestures of Umbanda and Candomblé ceremonies nto a universal human expression. His choreography reconstructs the powerful gestures captures trance-like turning and movements as well as the raw and dizzying energy of their sacred rites. Set to eleven musical themes created specially for the company by Brazilian fusion group Metá Metá, Gira becomes a mesmerizing 40-minute piece of primal, ritualistic energy.
Artistic director Paulo Pederneiras founded the company in 1975 recruiting his siblings who included choreographer Rodrigo Pederneiras. Grupo Corpo went on to become the resident dance company of the Maison de la Danse in Lyon, France from 1996–1999, and today, with over 40 works in its repertoire, the company has gained international acclaim for disciplined dancing by virtuoso dancers who seamlessly integrate disparate influences.
LA Opera will present the company premiere of Ainadamar April 26 through May 18.
The show recounts the fateful final days of poet and playwright Federico García Lorca who was executed during the Spanish Civil War at a natural spring in the hills above the Spanish city of Granada known as Aynadamar, Arabic for fountain of tears.
Recounting the poet’s life is Margarita Xirgu, a veteran Spanish actress and Lorca’s muse who spent her career portraying Mariana Pineda in Lorca’s play. Pineda was a 19th-century political martyr executed by the absolutist Spanish regime for sewing a revolutionary flag with the embroidered slogan “Equality, Freedom and Law. Lorca could see her statue from the window of his family home in Granada and grew to idolize her. Evoking the vibrant colors and poetry of Andalusia and especially Lorca’s hometown Granada, the play was Lorca’s first theatrical success. He asked Xirgu to play the title role at its premiere in June 1927 at the Teatre Goya in Barcelona with scenic design and costumes by Salvador Dalí.
Xirgu fled Spain at the beginning of the Civil War but was unable to persuade Lorca to leave as well. His liberal beliefs and open homosexuality subsequently led to his death at the hands of the Falange, the fascist party founded by the son of former Spanish dictator General Primo de Rivera. Xirgu continued to play Mariana Pineda, keeping Lorca’s work alive. The opera is based on Xirgu’s memories in a series of flashbacks as she prepares to go on stage as Mariana Pineda.
The opera opens with a group of young actresses singing the opening ballad and Xirgu remembers Lorca’s brilliance as she tells her young student Nuria of meeting Lorca for the first time in a Madrid bar where he first described his play to her. The flashback is interrupted by a broadcast over the state radio by the Falangist Ramón Ruiz Alonso that his party will stamp out the beginnings of the revolution. With the launch of the Spanish Civil War, Xirgu pleads with Lorca to join her and her theatre company in Cuba, but he is adamant about staying on in Granada. Xirgu blames herself for not being able to persuade the idealistic Lorca to abandon Spain and save himself. As she sings of her dreams of finding freedom in Cuba, Lorca insists that he must witness and write about his country’s suffering.
As Xirgu is dying, she performs Pineda’s story for the last time, telling Nuria that though the actor acts only for a moment, but the larger idea of freedom transcends that. A vision of Lorca interrupts her, thanking her for immortalizing his spirit on stage, in the hearts of her students, and the world.
Led by Resident Conductor Lina González-Granados, the production features a dramatic, flamenco-inspired score by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov and a poignant libretto by David Henry Hwang. Staged by director Deborah Colker, the production has won acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera, Scottish Opera, Welsh National Opera and Detroit Opera.
Ana María Martínez (currently appearing as Despina in LAO’s Così fan tutte) returns to take center stage as Lorca’s muse, Margarita Xirgu.
Since its 2003 world premiere, Ainadamar has become one of the most frequently performed operas of the 21st century, seen throughout Europe, North America and South America. Although it is an LA Opera company premiere, the opera has even been performed extensively locally in LA by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2004, Long Beach Opera in 2012 and USC Thornton Opera in 2016, and so should be familiar to local audience.
Ainadamar is sung in Spanish with both English and Spanish supertitles.
Special Events planned around the opera include a Celebración de las Artes hosted by LA Opera Connects and Hispanics for LA Opera after the May 4 matinee, with music, food and fun for all on the Music Center’s Jerry Moss Plaza.
The May 7 performance will mark Pride Night, with a special post-performance gathering for attendees.
Dance at The Music Center will present an impressive five-day seven-performance engagement with the acclaimed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater April 2–6. Led by Interim Artistic Director Matthew Rushing, it celebrates the legacy of Artistic Director Emerita Judith Jamison’s 2024 passing with LA premieres, new productions, repertory favorites and Ailey classics.
The first program (Program A) features the L.A. premieres of Sacred Songs (2024) choreographed by Los Angeles native Matthew Rushing; Many Angels (2024) choreographed by Lar Lubovitch; and a restaging of Treading (1979) choreographed by Elisa Monte. Program A will be performed on the evenings of April 2, 4 and 6 and a matinee on April 5.
The second program (Program B) includes a new production of Ailey favorites: Grace (1999) choreographed by Ronald K. Brown; Ailey Excerpts choreographed by Alvin Ailey from his Pas De Duke (1976), Masekela Langage (1969), Opus McShann (1988), Love Songs(1972) and For ‘Bird’ – With Love (1984); and Cry (1971), a tribute to Judith Jamison choreographed by Alvin Ailey. Program B will be performed on the evenings of April 3 and 5 and a matinee on April 6.
Both programs will conclude with the company’s signature masterpiece Revelations which continues to lift audiences with its grace and spiritual elation.
The L.A. premiere of Sacred Songs, created by Interim Artistic Director Matthew Rushing, features music used in the original 1960 premiere of Revelations but later omitted in its current version. The stirring piece resurrects the spirituals as an offering to audiences’ present need for lamentation, faith and joy.
Many Angels features Lar Lubovitch’s lush choreography for Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, inspired by the question posed by 13th century theologian St. Thomas Aquinas “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” The question is not about factual truth, but faith.
In Elisa Monte’s Treading, two dancers come together in fluid, intricate movements that combine with Steve Reich’s meditative music to create mystery and sensuality.
Celebrating its 25th anniversary, Ronald K. Brown’s spellbinding Grace is set to Duke Ellington’s classic Come Sunday, Peven Everett’s hit Gabriel and Fela Kuti’s afro-pop music. Grace depicts individuals on a journey to the promised land, expanding from a single angel-like figure in white to the fireball intensity of 12 powerful dancers. The piece connects the secular and sacred in a fusion of African and American dance.
The 16-minute solo Cry was an immediate sensation at its 1971 New York City Center premiere, propelling Ailey’s muse Judith Jamison to international stardom and later to become the company’s artistic director. Here she represents the trials and tribulations of Black women’s African origins and their joyful triumph over hardships. In a tribute to Jamison, there will be performances of the finale of Cry set to the Voices of East Harlem singing Right On, Be Free.
Revelations is an intimate reflection of Mr. Ailey’s childhood memories of growing up in the South and attending services at Mount Olive Baptist Church in Texas and pays homage to the rich cultural heritage of the African American community.Since its debut in 1960, it has been moving audiences with its powerful storytelling and soul-stirring music evoking themes of determination, hope and transcendence as it explores the emotional spectrum of the human condition.
LA Art Show returns to the LA Convention Center on Feb 19-23, marking its 30th anniversary with over 100 global exhibitors. The show has sought to democratize art by offering a range of mediums and price points to ensure accessibility while also catering to established art collectors.
As LA’s largest and longest-running fair, LA Art Show has played a significant role in the City’s emergence as a global art epicenter and its ever-expanding global reach will be on full display with exhibitors from Turkey, Spain, Belgium, Japan, Canada, France, Taiwan, London, Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Highlights include:
• LICHT FELD GALLERY (SWITZERLAND): Multidisciplinary artist and bestselling poet, Arch Hades – named the highest paid living poet in the world in 2021 – presents her sculpture the ‘Isle,’ a tribute to the island of San Michele in Veneto, where the entire island is a cemetery known as the ‘island of the dead’. This sculpture features poetry ‘poems are like gravestones, marking where love lies’ in Hades’ handwriting on the black, polished ‘lagoon’ plane) and the ‘graves’ of the island represented by many books forming the sculptures.
• SNISARENKO GALLERY (UKRAINE): “She, Unbroken” brings together Ukrainian-born female artists whose works express their war experience, resilience and strength.
• CORAL GALLERY (MIAMI) will showcase Roberto Vivo’s sculptural works like “The Human Tribe Totem,” a large 77 x 95 inch bronze sculpture expressing human unity and diversity. Inviting contemplation on form, space, and harmony, it debuted at the 2024 Venice Biennale.
• CASTERLINE|GOODMAN GALLERY (ASPEN): Young American artist, Daniel Yocum who has gained recognition for his unique approach to figurative abstract expressionism infused with hip-hop aesthetics, often incorporates imagery of cars and flowers amidst vivid colors and black marks.
• ART IN DONGSAN (SOUTH KOREA): Sculptural works from Steel Che (Youngkwan Choi) repurpose industrial materials into artistic forms. The exhibition’s centerpiece Steam Robot demonstrates his mastery of traditional craftsmanship.
• COLUMBIA ROAD GALLERY (LONDON, UK): Capturing East London’s vibrant art scene, the gallery showcases up-and-coming UK artists Kate Boxer, Thomas Gosebruch, Hannah Ludnow, and Jonathan Schofield.
• DANUBIANA MUSESUM (SLOVAKIA): Viktor Freso’s breathtaking 30-foot Bear sculpture symbolizing power and resilience, will be displayed in the lobby setting the tone for the event as bigger, and more ambitious.
To amplify marginalized perspectives,the show will include a non-commercial section DIVERSEartLA curated by Marisa Caichiolo featuring 8 famed art institutions representing diversity and inclusion in the arts. They include Celebrating Diversity by Chiachio & Giannone curated by Gabriela Urtiaga, Chief Curator at MOLAA, Dactiloscopia Rosa: Video Art and QUEER Constructions curated by Nestor Prieto and presented by Museo La Neomudejar (Madrid, Spain), and Carlos Martiel | Cauce/Riverbed curated By Marisa Caichiolo
For more information and tickets, please visit www.laartshow.com; 15% of proceeds will be donated to the American Heart Association’s Life is Why campaign.
The LA Chapter of Information Systems Security Association will host ISSA LA Summit 2024 & Women in Security Forum at the Annenberg Beach House on Wednesday, October 9 from 9am – 6pm at the Annenberg Beach House.
Billed as the biggest and most important gathering of information security professionals in Southern California, the all-day Summit will feature opening and closing talks, keynotes, panel discussions and speakers in multiple tracks to get you updated by world-class speakers on the latest Information Security trends and solutions. There will be a Vendor Expo, Career Center, networking opportunities with up to 8 CPE Credits.
The talk Golden Age of Dystopia will provide a critical analysis of key events and trends that have led to the current state, exploring how commercialization, mass surveillance and the rise of big data analytics have contributed to the erosion of digital privacy & security.
The once clear-cut world of cybersecurity is now a complex maze of data breaches and privacy regulation that has caused a surge in litigation and enforcement.
The explosion of valuable data and information is of enormous value in marketing and advertising, medical care, banking and finance, hospitality, and product development and what data is collected, stored and secured, used, and disposed of is currently under scrutiny by regulators, governments, and litigators, creating enormous pressure to protect sensitive data from misuse and theft. Talks will arm you with the latest strategies and skills that must be adopted to survive the courtroom.
With a nod to the election year comes a talk Cyber Threats Targeting Elections: Disinformation Campaigns, Ransomware Attacks, and the Rise of Political Extremism and Violence. With US democracy at risk from foreign enemies wanting to disrupt and derail the democratic process, the presentation explores various dimensions of cyber threats targeting elections such as disinformation campaigns and ransomware attacks to exploit the rise of political extremism and violence so you can better navigate the political information landscape.
Insights about how data, systems and technology either can promote or undermine legal defensibility, so speakers will share basic principles and strategies for designing and using technology for data handling to help advance legal goals and defensibility with compliance, contracting, audit, investigations, governance, incident management and response, and dealing with government and other investigations.
Contextual entitlements concept to access and process rights and privileges that users, services or groups have within specific contexts or situations can vary based on the environment, the role of the user or group, device trust, and legal or regulatory frameworks for cloud and on-premise access and differs from traditional static and binary sign-on platforms, so learn to identify and analyze the issues that influence contextual entitlements.
The talk, In-Depth Analysis of a Phishing Email case study provides an example of the kinds of analysis that goes into responding to a phishing email. This includes an in-depth technical analysis of the email, its attachment, and the websites the victim would interact with to show the kinds of digital forensics and online investigation skills when responding to a targeted phishing campaign.
Information Systems Security Association Los Angeles is a member-supported organization of information security professionals and practitioners. It provides educational forums and peer interaction opportunities to enhance the knowledge, skill and professional growth of the Cybersecurity and IT Community. ISSA-LA’s mission is to be the premier catalyst and information source in the Los Angeles community for improving the practice of information security.
For more information and tickets, please visit https://issala.org
Balboa Bay Resort will kick off the summer season with the return of its three-day event, the Newport Beach Wine Festival over the Memorial Day weekend May 24-26. Set against the picturesque waterfront backdrop of the luxury resort, the Festival will offer an impressive lineup of the resort’s suppliers of its premium wines and spirits.
The three-day event Festival kicks off on Friday evening, May 24th with a 4-Course Justin Winery Limited Release Wine Dinner at 6:30 pm, with a reception 6:00pm in the Club’s Lighthouse Room with its sweeping views of Newport Harbor.
Prepared by Executive Chef Prabeen and his culinary team, the dinner will highlight the first releases from Justin wines outside Paso Robles, Sonoma County Chardonnay and Russian River Valley Pinot Noir with a wine pairing discussion lead by Master Sommelier Joseph Spellman.
On Saturday, May 25th, 1:00pm – 5:00pm, the Wine & Spirits Festival will showcase a Grand Tasting of over forty of the resort’s favorite wine and spirits vendors including DAOU, Whispering Angel, Flecha Azul, Macallan, and others. It will also feature bountiful buffet stations, complemented by live music. The event will take place in the Library, Commodore Room, Lighthouse and Bayfront Lawn, extending onto the boardwalk and Bayfront Lawn overlooking the marina, yachts, and Lido Island with breathtaking bay views.
On Sunday MAY 26, 10:00am-2:00pm, the final day of the Wine Festival weekend will conclude with a specialty Veuve Clicquot Champagne Brunch in the Lighthouse Room. The extravagant buffet will feature fresh seafood and caviar along with traditional brunch favorites, a carving station, an omelet station, and live music.
Guests reserving a room for the Wine Festival over Memorial Day Weekend a 10% discount on guest room rates and a 10% discount on festival tickets.
Balboa Bay Resort has partnered with luxury electric vehicle brand Lucid Motors to offer complimentary chauffeur rides from its Fashion Island studio to address the limited parking.
Proceeds from the Festival benefit the Balboa Bay Club Scholarship Fund, that provides scholarships to exceptional graduating high school students in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District.
LA Opera will present Giacomo Puccini’s spectacular Turandot, one of the grandest of all operas, from May 18 through June 8. Puccini’s final opera showcasing the magnificent music of Italy’s last great operatic composer created at the height of his maturity and technical mastery has continued to draw standing ovations over the last century.
When Puccini’s untimely death in 1924 left his final opera unfinished, composer Franco Alfano was commissioned to create the ending for its world premiere at Milan’s La Scala in 1926, and his version has the standard finale.
As a fairy tale set in legendary China, the opera is a departure from the composer’s verismo image and reflects the European fascination with the exotica of Orientalism that shaped 19th-century European arts. Puccini had already explored it in Madama Butterfly, and now re-visits it with a richer, more exotic palette.
Baron Edoardo Fassini-Camossi, Italy’s former Italian diplomat to China had given Puccini a music box that played four Chinese melodies, three of which Puccini incorporated into this opera, with the most memorable of these being the folk melody Mò Li Hūa ‘Jasmine Flower’, which serves as a leitmotif for Princess Turandot. Eight of the themes from Turandot appear to be based on traditional Chinese music and anthems.
However, as elsewhere the Orientalism of the opera remains remains rooted in the West, and remains China as seen by Europeans. The plot’s central dramatic moment is the life and death confrontation between the Princess Turandot and the Unknown Prince posed by the three riddles which must be correctly answered for the prince to escape execution are rooted in the enigmas in the classical tradition of Ancient Greece, and the comedic characters of the ministers Ping, Pang and Pong are straight out of Italy’s commedia del arte tradition.
For many years, the government of the People’s Republic of China forbade performance of Turandot because to them it portrayed China and the Chinese unfavorably. They finally relented for the international collaboration Turandot at the Forbidden City performed for eight nights in September 1998. Conducted by Zubin Mehta, the production featured opulent sets, even using soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army as extras.
The opera’s celebrated aria Nessun dorma has become a staple of operatic recitals, with Luciano Pavarotti taking it beyond the operatic world by performing it for a global general audience at the 1990 World Cup, and the Three Tenors performed it at three subsequent World Cup Finals. Many crossover and pop artists have continued to perform and record it, and it has been used in the soundtracks of numerous films.
A co-production of San Francisco Opera and Lyric Opera of Chicago, the LA production is new to Los Angeles. Turandot’s soprano role is demanding both in its range – from vulnerability to the ice-cold princess of her bloody reign. It must also keep the audience attention and audience sympathy from being upstaged by the other soprano – the selfless Liu tugging at the audience’s heartstrings. Angela Meade is up for this this challenging role, with Russell Thomas as her fearless suitor.
Conducted by LA Opera’s Music Director James Conlon, the production features stage designs by David Hockney, long associated with Southern California, creating the splendor and spectacle of imperial China.
Turandot is sung in Italian with English subtitles, with a running time of two hours and 55 minutes which includes two intermissions. There will be six performances of Turandot, all at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.
LA Opera will present a beloved staple of the opera repertoire, Giuseppe Verdi’s romantic tragedy La Traviata, from April 6 through 27.
The story of La Traviata, The Fallen Woman, follows the Parisian courtesan Violetta Valéry whose love affair with Alfredo Germont offers her an unexpected taste of true love, but also devastating consequences when Alfredo’s father intervenes.
The story is based on the life of a real woman Marie Duplessis who rose from poverty to become one of 19th-century Paris’s most celebrated courtesans before dying from tuberculosis in her prime at age 23. Writer Alexandre Dumas based his romantic novel La Dame aux Camélias on their brief affair and subsequently adapted the novel into a hugely successful play upon which Verdi based his opera.
Marie’s tragically short life continues to both haunt and inspire creative expression in film from the silent era to modern times, including the 1936 Greta Garbo classic Camille, the 1990 romantic comedy Pretty Woman, and the 2001 musical Moulin Rouge! Franco Zeffrelli directed a film of the opera in 1982 starring LA Opera’s Placido Domino.
Since its 1853 premiere, La Traviata has won the hearts of generations of opera fans with its memorable music with deep emotional resonance highlighted by the prelude, and showstopping arias like Violetta’s Sempre libera to make it one of the most popular operas in the repertoire.
One of 1850s trio of Verdi’s most popular operas, La Traviata is an example of French influenced romantic realism that was calculated to test the moral tolerance of its contemporary audience. The Parisian drawing rooms were habited by men like Germont who had no problems while carousing and gambling themselves, had no problem seeing the courtesan, an epitome of selfless love as morally inferior. When Traviata first played in London, the theater provided no translation of the libretto, fearing that might cause moral offense.
But history has proven the last laugh to be Violetta’s and Verdi’s, as both sing their way into immortality as the beloved La Traviata.
Music Director James Conlon will conduct five of the six performances at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, with Louis Lohraseb conducting on April 18. The production, new to Los Angeles, premiered in San Francisco Opera in 2022. Directed by Shawna Lucey, it stars Rachel Willis-Sørensen as Violetta and Armenian tenor Liparit Avetisyan as her lover Alfredo.
The opera is sung in Italian with English subtitles. The running time is approximately two hours and 55 minutes, including two intermissions.
