MEDITERRANEAN

 

“Do you notice anything different here from what you’re used to at home?” Bill asks. 

 

We’re in line for tickets to see John Wick, Chapter 2…which turned out to be just as much fun as the first one and even better on a huge screen with pumped up sound and the comfy seats that the Arclight in Hollywood features. But I digress...

“Yeah,” I reply, “this line is glacial.” 

That was it alright. The line although short was poking along. It was my introduction to the pace of LA. I’m telling ya, things go slowly here. Movie lines, supermarket lines, get in any line and expect to wait a while, a long while, before you get to the front. 

That's when I began to notice more examples of an absence of urgency. 

There are two major residential construction projects underway in our immediate neighborhood. I pass them just about every day. I’m a guy who knows a thing or two about construction and these projects are construction at a snail’s pace. 

On a beautiful day in LA, Sandi Amtraks up from Rancho Magnifico. After a leisurely lunch we walk to the Geffen Contemporary where a guard opens a door to tell us it’s closed until April while they mount a new exhibit.

“But the website says the new exhibit opens today,” we protest.

“They really should change that,” says the guard. “The MOCA on Grand is open”

We set out for there.

“We’re partially closed while we mount new exhibits,” we’re told. “Only the permanent collection is on view. We’ll compensate you with a voucher for a free admission when the new exhibits open in April.” Late in the game, this, so we opt in although we’ll be long gone before the vouchers are any use to us. We give two vouchers to Alvaro, two to Sandi. We head inside.

The permanent collection is small but mighty, a room fulla Rothkos, lotsa Pop and a fine Pollock. We’ve just enough time to toss it. Then it’s time for Sandi to catch her train home.

And that’s it. Or should be. But heading back to Silver Lake it occurred to me that it’s all part of a piece. Once again we’d encountered that Los Angeles dearth of determination to get things done quickly.

You know who is in a hurry here? Nobody. Why, I wondered. I suspect it’s climate related. Look up SoCal climate and you’ll find it described as Mediterranean, typified by relatively mild winters, warm summers and lotsa sunshine. The old adage, “Make hay while the sun shines,” doesn’t really apply here. When there’s one nice day after another, there’s really no need to hurry to get things done.

Not that I’m complaining exactly. It’s just that I’ve had to gear down my expectations. That's proven to be easier than I would have thought. It’s not a matter of patience, one of the few virtues I try to practice. Instead, it’s more of fitting in and going along with the slow, slow flow. Hustle and hassle? Forget it, Jack, it’s Mediterranean.

CODA

Mediterranean is not about traffic. For all the years I’ve been coming here I’ve defended LA traffic as heavy at times but bareable because it rolls along. However, during this visit and my last one a year or so ago, I’ve been forced to rethink this, mostly while stuck in interminable bumper to bumper, stop and go, mostly stop, traffic. Clearly, traffic’s gotten worse. I suspect it's got something to do with LA’s quite low for a large city density. It's the  source of so much of the city's charm. But it also means putting everybody out on the road for everything. More and more.

Way back in this blog at the conclusion of a driving in LA piece, I copied in a poem by Bill. This visit I learned he’s written a second stanza:

 

                 

    Getting There

                            by William Tutton

 

Cars

cars  cars

cars cars, cars

cars cars cars cars

cars cars cars cars cars

cars cars cars cars cars cars

cars cars cars cars cars cars cars

plus a bus

Winter in LA 2017 Pt II

Jessica Lang Dance, Ahmanson Theater, February 17 

We weren’t familiar with Jessica Lang Dance. But the company’s appearance at a major downtown venue, The Ahmanson Theater at the Music Center encouraged us to attend. So glad we did. We discovered Lang’s innovative choreography performed by an exceptionally strong company in a theater perfect for dance.

Tesseracts of Time, the opening piece, a collaboration with architect Steve Holl performed in four parts to music by contemporary composers won is over immediately.  The opening dance to music by Pulitzer Prize winning minimalist David Lang, really just a series of clicks and tones, quickly established Lang’s gift to find the movement in the music. Buffalonians are familiar very familiar with Morton Feldman’s deliberately arrhythmic compositions. It was a daring choice to choreograph the second part to his music, a challenge met by employing video to create an otherwise physically impossible dance where onscreen performers appear and disappear among unfolding geometric patterns.

We’ve seen ever greater use of video in dance. Much of White, A Dance on Film is video on a full stage sized screen. This allows seeing dance larger than life, to see the dancer’s movements in ways never possible otherwise- close up or sped up or in slow motion.

All of the dancers in this company are exceptional. Two in particular stand out. Kana Kimura is slight and extraordinarily lithe. Milan Misko is the biggest dude I’ve ever seen in a dance company. His strength combined with her elasticity allows Lang to create astonishing duets.

This is a young company, just five years old. Choreographer and Artistic Director Jessica Lang is in her forties. As her creativity continues to evolve and her company continues to prosper, world class status is certain.

 

 

 

“Salome” by Richard Strauss, LA Opera, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. March 2

 

 Our first disappointing LA Opera production, mostly for lack thereof. Instead of the stagecraft we’ve come to expect we got a marginally employed lackluster set. I blame director David Paul for the poorly posed presentation and for soprano Patricia Racette’s portrayal of Salome as more of a petulant princess than a sensuous seductress. Characters addressing each other stood at opposite sides of the stage facing the audience and declaimed. Only Allan Glassman as Herod showed any real acting chops.

(Racette redeems her performance with her long, powerful, erotic and perverse song to the served to her on silver head of the prophet, Jochanaan) 

The evening was saved by the glorious music of Richard Strauss. I mean, how often does one close one’s eyes during the dance of the seven veils so as to concentrate on the music.

 

 

 

Jane Monheit, Catalina Jazz Club. March 3.
It took a coupla numbers, probably until her first ballad, before I tumbled in. From then on it was a total groove hearing this superb singer live. What pipes!
What an extraordinary sense of style! She’s truly in the great tradition of chick jazz singers.

 

 Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, March 8

 

Last big ticket this tour. A big deal: six performances over five days in the largest venue in LA. Because pretty near everyone who knows me has heard my Alvin Ailey story at least once, I’m pledged not to repeat it. The gist of it is I know what to expect from this venerable dance company – challenging choreography performed by some of the best dancers in the world. All those expectations were met and exceeded. Again.

They performed four pieces:

·       R-Evolution, Dream- My personal favorite. In the company’s tradition: street dance and balletic dance and a least a coupla breath taking moments, all of it steeped in African-American culture. Choreographed by company veteran Hope Boykin and inspired, she writes, by the speeches and sermons of Martin Luther King. I’d advise anyone who might be put off by the politics to just watch the dancers.

 

·       Untitled America – hard core choreography, intense, much of it performed to thrums and clicks or spoken word. The piece asks a lot of the dancers; they excel. Inventive and compelling and crucial to the advancement of the art.

·       Ella – the only dance on the program choreographed by Artistic Director Robert Battle. Two chicks dance out the one and only Ella scatting. Great fun

·       Revelations by the late Alvin Alley. I’m sorry but this signature piece seems dated to me now. What once was ground breaking choreography seems light and uncomplicated in view of all that came before it this evening. And there is that touch of watermelon. Still, the LA audiences loved it. Cheering wildly at every turn. No really, I’ve never encountered that in a dance audience before