It’s a one-off recital during a time when South Florida is beginning to swelter and all the snowbirds have gone home, but violinist Anne Akiko Meyers’s appearance tonight will include two new pieces of music that she’ll be championing all this year. Meyers, a native of Southern California, came to prominence at age 11 with two appearances on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show (she … [Read more...]
Archives for June 2014
‘Ida’ a hypnotic, beautiful journey into a dark past
In the Polish import Ida, the sky is always overcast, the interiors are as sparse as monasteries, nobody ever smiles, and they don’t speak very much, either. It goes without saying that it’s photographed in black-and-white; it’s that kind of art-house movie. As much as I hate the qualifier “it’s not for everyone,” this is one of those films that’s not for everyone. But … [Read more...]
Schlocky ‘Cougar’ aims low and stays there
Apologies in advance if you are a fan of Menopause: The Musical, Waist Watchers: The Musical or The D Word. There is a word that sums up these shows and it is “schlock.” But it is schlock that sells, so no amount of critical disapproval will probably end — or even slow — the arrival of these lowest common denominator entertainments. Still, critics are an optimistic bunch, so … [Read more...]
Essay: Keeping dance all about the art
By Tara Mitton Catao Dance competitions are multiplying in profusion these days, forcing those of us in the art form to have mixed feelings about a growing popularity that seems to treat dance more as a sport than an art form. Dance has always relied heavily on technique because it uses the human body as its tool for artistic expression. The more technique a dancer has, the … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: June 13-15
Film: Bicycling with Molière is a French film about two actors with large egos — if that is not redundant — rivals who are envious of each other to a fault. Gauthier (Lambert Wilson) is a television star who plays a brain surgeon on a popular French series, while the other has quit the business and moved to a small, remote village. Unsatisfied with his success, the TV actor … [Read more...]
Community theater: Broward Stage Door’s ‘Hello, Muddah’ deserves more laughs
By Dale King For a fleeting couple of years in the early 1960s, Allan Sherman was at the top of his game in the field of creating song parodies. His 1962 album, My Son the Folk Singer, became the fastest-selling LP recording up to that time, and put Sherman on the fast track to fame. He would record seven more albums, each falling a little or a lot short of the previous. … [Read more...]
Art-house patina can’t hide ordinariness of ‘Words and Pictures’
Having been raised in the drudgery of our non-airbrushed public school system and not in the Hollywood fantasy of a freewheeling private school, I couldn’t relate much to the milieu of Words and Pictures, a rival-teachers dramedy set in a mythical world of privileged academia. It’s the kind of environment where syllabi, curricula and sensible grades are jettisoned, if they ever … [Read more...]
Tonys question: Why not celebrate theater community, as is?
Since the Tony Awards telecast is more about marketing Broadway than it is about handing out statuettes for excellence, it is only fitting that awards were spread out to 13 different shows, each of which can hang out the Tonys shingle for whatever box office boost that is worth. As expected, there was no dominant winner Sunday night, with the revival of Hedwig and the Angry … [Read more...]
Sundays: The era of alt-delete
By Myles Ludwig Erase thyself. This might very well turn out to be the 11th Commandment of the early 21st century. It could be the Holy Grail of semi-privacy or just a cure for the bewildering, often incapacitating condition of Kardashiana, popularly known as TMI. Like most cures (the off-label uses of moldy bread, for example), this one was discovered by accident. Thanks … [Read more...]
Amernet’s Dvořák, Mozart shine at Mainly Mozart
Although technically it takes place in the very last days of spring, the Mainly Mozart Festival shares with the best summer festivals the idea that a sweltering month is just as good as a frigid one for pursuing music of the utmost seriousness and high caliber. This past Sunday, at the Danielson Gallery on the grounds of the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, the veteran Miami … [Read more...]