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February 22, 2007
Jay Dickman, Photographer and Olympus Visionary, 2-23-07
In the past 10 years, Jay Dickman has had over 20 assignments for National Geographic, and has worked on most of the Day in the Life series, including America, China, the USSR, Italy, Ireland, Spain, and most recently, Africa.
Jay's work appeared in Passage to Vietnam and was highlighted on the interactive CD ROM. Jay has won a Pulitzer Prize, World Press "Golden Eye," Sigma Delta Chi "Distinguished Service in Journalism," and many other national and regional awards. Most recently, Jay has carried his love of photography into the teaching field, working as a faculty member/speaker for American Photo’s ”Mentor Series,” “Photography at the Summit” workshop, and his own First Light Workshops.
Established by Olympus America Inc. in partnership with some of today’s most talented photographers, the Olympus Visionary program is dedicated to creating superb digital images with the help of Olympus’ digital cameras and lenses. Olympus Visionaries span all fields of photography and work in a diversity of styles and subject matter, but they are united in realizing their creative vision through digital photography. The Visionaries use Olympus digital cameras in their daily assignments and personal work; participate in speaking engagements and appearances; and provide Olympus with input into equipment development. The Visionaries include several Pulitzer Prize-winning and Magnum photographers, as well as internationally renowned photographers from the United States, Brazil, Canada, Italy and Japan.
Posted by David Lemberg at 12:50 PM | Comments (0)
Amy Rogers, Director, Musical Theatre Program, Pace University, 2-23-07
Amy Rogers is the Director of the new Musical Theatre Program at Pace University, where she created and developed the BFA Musical Theatre degree program; the second of its kind in New York City. Amy has assisted critically acclaimed director Lonny Price on the Pre-Broadway workshop of 110 in The Shade starring Audra McDonald, the Emmy Award-winning Passion for Live at Lincoln Center on PBS (Patti LuPone, Audra McDonald, Michael Cerveris); Candide with the New York Philharmonic (Patti LuPone, Kristin Chenoweth); Anyone Can Whistle at the Ravinia Festival, and both Kismet (Brian Stokes Mitchell, Marin Mazzie) and Can-Can with Encores! at City Center.
Amy’s professional directing credits include: The original workshops of the R&B Musical Warm, But I’m a Cheerleader (conceptual director), and both Hoods and Hoofers (Rob Lindsay Nassif, world premiere) and LUCK!(Brad Ross and Mark Waldrop) at Pace University. Others include Flora The Red Menace starring Sheri Sanders, The Music Man, My Name is Alice, Triumph of Love, and Guys and Dolls. Productions at Pace University include: Urinetown, Violet, Pippin, Into The Woods, Funny Girl, and A Grand Night for Singing. Amy has taught master classes at numerous universities, summer programs and is an audition and repertoire coach in New York City.
The Department of Musical Theater at Pace University began in 2002 when the Performing Arts Department hired Amy Rogers to create a comprehensive Musical Theater program based on an interest from current students. Originally the Department offered only one Musical Theater class, but with Rogers’s arrival the classes grew in size and popularity. Over the span of five years, Rogers has created a world-class BFA Musical Theater program with no additional funding from the University or elsewhere. The program, only the second BFA of its nature to be offered in Manhattan (the first is offered at NYU), was approved by the state and instated in April of 2006. The program has grown exponentially from four majors to 66, and the program auditions over 200 hopeful high school and transfer students annually for the Musical Theater program alone.
Posted by David Lemberg at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2007
Beatriz Colomina, Professor of Architecture, and Founding Director, Program in Media and Modernity, Princeton University, 2-23-07
Beatriz Colomina is Professor of Architecture, and Founding Director, Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton University. She is the author of Domesticity at War (ACTAR and MIT Press, 2006), Doble exposición: Arquitectura a través del arte (Akal, 2006) and Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media (MIT Press, 1994) and the editor of Architectureproduction (Princeton Architectural Press, 1988), Sexuality and Space (PAP, 1992), and Cold War Hot Houses: Inventing Postwar Culture from Cockpit to Playboy (PAP, 2004).
Beatriz is the organizer of the exhibition Clip/Stamp/Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196X-197X at the Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal. The show will travel to several cities in North America, Europe, and Asia, starting with the CCA in Montreal on April 12th, Documenta 12 (Kassel, Germany), and the Architectural Association in London. Recently she received a Graham Foundation grant for her next research project X-Ray Architecture: Illness as Metaphor.
Posted by David Lemberg at 04:24 PM | Comments (0)
February 16, 2007
Stanley Nelson, Emmy Award–Winning Filmmaker, MacArthur Fellow, and Executive Producer, Firelight Media, 2-16-07
Stanley Nelson, an Emmy-winning MacArthur “genius” Fellow, is Executive Producer of Firelight Media, a nonprofit documentary production company dedicated to giving voice to people and issues that are marginalized in popular culture. Nelson is perhaps best known for his groundbreaking historical documentaries, films that illuminate critical but overlooked history. His 2003 film, The Murder of Emmett Till, was broadcast nationally on PBS’s American Experience to rave reviews, and Nelson went on to win the Primetime Emmy for Best Directing, nonfiction; the Special Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival; a coveted award from the International Documentary Association; and the highest honor in broadcast journalism, the George Foster Peabody award, among many others.
Nelson’s oeuvre spans the range of documentary forms. His newest film—Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple—previewed in April 2006 at the Tribeca and San Francisco Film Festivals to sold-out audiences and critical acclaim from both broadcast and print media. In a departure from his frequent historical perspective, the 2005 film Sweet Honey in the Rock: Raise Your Voice documented one of the country’s most vibrant and progressive musical ensembles. Nelson’s 2004 A Place of Our Own, a semi-autobiographical look at the African American middle class, moved audiences to tears at the Sundance Film Festival documentary competition and in national broadcast on PBS’s acclaimed series Independent Lens. His 2001 film, Running: the Campaign for City Council, highlighted the impact of campaign finance reform on local elections in New York City and was honored with the Henry Hampton award from the Council on Foundations and a CINE Golden Eagle.
With four films in competition at Sundance in six years and multiple industry awards to his credit, Nelson is acknowledged as one of the premier documentary filmmakers working today. In 2004, he received the CINE Leadership Award for his body of work, and his films have individually won nearly every award in film and broadcasting. His 2002 Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind was named best production of the year by the Black Filmmakers’ Hall of Fame and the Black International Cinema Festival in Berlin; his 1999 film, The Black Press: Soldiers without Swords, won a duPont-Columbia Silver Baton and the Sundance Film Festival’s Freedom of Expression award, was named Best Documentary at the San Francisco Film Festival, and won an Emmy nomination. Two Dollars and a Dream: The Story of Madame C. J. Walker and A’lelia Walker was named Best Film of the Decade by the Black Filmmaker Foundation.
Nelson’s work has also received broad recognition outside the film and television community. In 2004, he received the Educational Video Center’s Excellence in Community Service award and was honored by New York Lawyers in the Public Interest. Beyond Brown: Pursuing the Promise has served as a centerpiece for reflection on the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education by such organizations as the NAACP, the National Baptist Convention, and the Children’s Defense Fund since airing nationally on PBS in May 2004.
Nelson holds a B.F.A. in film from the City College of New York. He was a fellow at the American Film Institute and a Revson Fellow at Columbia University, served on the Fulbright media fellowship committee, and was a Regents’ Lecturer at the University of California. He has taught film at Howard University and trained broadcast journalists in Rwanda. Nelson is a frequent speaker on new media and the “digital future” for filmmakers of color. He is a regular lecturer at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s National Producers Academy.
Firelight Media is a New York City and San Francisco Bay Area-based independent production and outreach company dedicated to using media to spur understanding, discussion, and action that will contribute to the struggle for social justice. Led by Sundance award-winner Stanley Nelson and Emmy-nominated writer Marcia Smith, Firelight Media has become the preeminent source of filmmaking on the African American experience for public television, covering topics ranging from civil rights icons and hip-hop’s critics to a capella ensembles and Black entrepreneurs.
Firelight Media has a long history of mentoring emerging producers of color and has institutionalized this practice by executive producing a number of films that have gone on to receive national and international acclaim. These projects include Byron Hurt’s, Beyond Beats and Rhymes, Carol Bash’s Soul on Soul: The Story of Mary Lou Williams, and Michele Stephenson’s Faces of Change.
Posted by David Lemberg at 11:21 AM | Comments (0)
Art Greco, Producer, and Ned Davies, Co-Producer, RED DOT, 2-16-07
RED DOT is a new, vetted, hotel-based art fair in New York where approximately 49 galleries will show and sell works to the public on three adjacent floors of the elegant Park South Hotel, located at 122 East 28th Street, NY. RED DOT will run from Friday, February 23 through Monday, February 26, 2007, with a Gala Opening Reception to be held on Friday, February 23 from 6 to 8PM. The reception will benefit New York’s Friends In Deed, The Crisis Center for Life-Threatening Illness.
Galleries participating in RED DOT come from across the U.S. and abroad, with an important representation of young West Coast dealers, including DEN Contemporary, Patricia Faure, and Taylor de Cordoba from Los Angeles, and Andrea Schwartz, Bucheon, and Toomey-Tourell from San Francisco. Prestigious established galleries, such as Nancy Hoffman, Elizabeth Harris and Littlejohn Contemporary are also participating. RED DOT is also pleased to have galleries from Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, Seattle, London and Paris showing a wide variety of new works by their artists.
RED DOT’s aim is to increase awareness and exposure of the work of unknown or lesser known artists who do not necessarily have access to the mainstream art gallery world represented at established NYC art fairs. In keeping costs as low as possible, RED DOT is a return to the roots of most U.S. art fairs, to a time when young, forward-looking galleries had to rely on innovation, surprise and whimsy to show and sell exciting new works instead of showing only safe bets in order to meet expenses. RED DOT works because it allows dealers to take real risks and show work they really believe in.
RED DOT is scheduled to take full advantage of art fairs occurring simultaneously throughout New York, including The Art Show, The Armory Show and Pulse at the nearby 26th Street Armory. RED DOT is encouraging New York and out-of-town visitors to these established fairs to include RED DOT in their art itineraries.
In addition to the selection of galleries, RED DOT is organizing a series of talks and seminars to take place during the fair, including “Contemporary Art: Currency or Culture?”, a panel discussion to be hosted by critic Maureen Mullarkey. Panelists include Laurie Fendrich, Lance Esplund, Lori Bookstein and Michael Walls.
Posted by David Lemberg at 11:19 AM | Comments (0)
Hassan Christopher, Artistic Director, Company of Strangers, and Monica Gillette, Filmmaker and Professional Dancer, 2-16-07
Hassan Christopher’s career in the performing arts has spanned nearly 15 years. Using an experimental approach he draws from classical, modern and contemporary urban dance forms to realize his vision of “Post-Hip Hop kinetic storytelling.”
Christopher began dancing in his native Chicago as a Deep House freestyle artist influenced by Breaking and martial arts. On a dare he took a dance class and ended up with a two-year scholarship to Gus Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago. Christopher’s passion for dance led him to NYU's Tisch school of the arts where he studied contemporary dance and experimental theater.
After New York, Christopher traveled to Eastern and Southern Africa, Brazil, India, Southeast Asia and Japan to study the styles, roles and social relevance of the performing arts within different cultures. His travels deeply influenced his belief in the transformative power of dance and theater.
Before Founding the Company of Strangers Christopher danced with David Rousseve, Diavolo Dance theater, Hiedi Duclker's Collage Dance theater, Rosanna Gamson World Wide, Julliard's Laura Glenn, Bill Evans, KT Niehoff and Maureen Whiting Company. He continues to perform and develop relationships with inspired contemporary dance artists.
Christopher recently finished choreographing/co-directing an expanded version of Sable and Batalion's critically acclaimed Hip Hop theater Musical, JOB The Hip Hopera. He is currently producing a collection of original Dance Electronica blending elements of House, Hip Hop, R&B and Blues as material for future Company of Strangers performances.
Christopher is Dance Faculty at UCLA LMU and the Edge Contemporary Dance Center in Hollywood. His teaching and performing continue to take him to new destinations around the globe.
Monica Gillette is an experienced filmmaker and professional dancer. She grew up training as a ballet dancer on scholarship with Stanley Holden Dance Studio and with the Joffrey Ballet. She also fell in love with the craft of film editing and quickly rose through the ranks of the commercial film world, working on such shows as The Sopranos, and Dick Wolf's Crime & Punishment. Since leaving Hollywood to return to dancing full-time, she has toured the U.S., Germany and Japan and has worked with several choreographers, including Patrick Corbin, Noemie Lafrance, Joe Goode, Yvonne Rainer, John Malashock, Helios Dance Theater, Company of Strangers, and most recently with the rock band Fischerspooner.
Monica now merges her two passions through dance films, which have screened at Dance Camera West, and she just completed a film with Johannes Wieland, which premiered as part of a live performance in New York City.
Posted by David Lemberg at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2007
ULI Los Angeles Urban Marketplace 2007, 3-21-07
Urban Marketplace 2007 is a unique conference on investment opportunities and development strategies for Southern California's emerging lower income and distressed neighborhoods. The ULI LA Urban Marketplace has become a national model over the past six years, attracting over 3400 real estate and related professionals, as well as community and government leaders to its case studies, roundtable discussions, and exhibits. Attendees learn best practices and solidify relations with key professionals and leaders at the forefront of revitalizing the inner city.
This year's event will explore strategies and best practices for investing and developing in Los Angeles' emerging neighborhoods. The discussion — entitled Where is L.A. Headed? Solving the Real Estate Puzzle — focuses on redevelopment and economic investment in four regions within the city: Hollywood, Downtown L.A., East L.A., and Inglewood.
Posted by David Lemberg at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)
February 09, 2007
Victoria Robertson, Singer, Songwriter, Performer, 2-9-07
Victoria Robertson is that rare performer who is truly multitalented. With seven years of recording experience to her credit, Victoria is a creative artist by nature, continually looking for new musical territory to conquer. Her first full album of original compositions, On My Mind (2004), earned her an San Diego Music Awards nomination for “Best New Artist” in 2005 and a LA Music Awards nomination for “Best Record of the Year” in 2006.
Her second album, Celebrating America (2005), showcased her classical vocal abilities, covering well known patriotic songs. Embracing the world of recording technology, Victoria co-produced, with renowned engineer, Alan Sanderson (Rolling Stones, Weezer, Elton John), her most recent album of refreshing energetic original music, Say New You (2007).
The result of Victoria’s ambitious journey is a career that’s multifaceted. Originally from New Jersey and graduating from UC San Diego with a Visual Arts degree, Victoria immersed herself in the arts and music scene nationally and in her home-base, Southern California. Currently a Mezzo-Soprano singer for the San Diego Opera, Victoria made her first impact back in 1998. That year she entered and won the Miss San Diego Pageant which enhanced her modeling career, public speaking skills, and brought to light her talent as a vocalist.
Music being the strongest of all her passions, Victoria began to perform her original songs with a five-piece band. She took a great interest in the USO and performed for the troops in locations as varied as aircraft carriers and desert training grounds, and for distinguished personnel, such as the Governor of California. Because of her efforts, Victoria was awarded the title of Miss USO, San Diego. She continues to tour the world, performing before thousands in England, the Netherlands, Germany and Greenland, with much more on the horizon.
Posted by David Lemberg at 08:43 AM | Comments (0)
Liz Casebolt and Joel Smith, Performers and Choreographers, 2-9-07
While in the process of enjoying two distinctly individual careers in performance and choreography, Liz Casebolt and Joel Smith met and discovered a shared desire to make dances that confront conventional notions of dance making. They formed casebolt and smith in the spring of 2005. Their focus on collaboration has enabled them to collide two diverse histories, exposing layers of social, cultural, gendered, sexual, and educational differences.
casebolt and smith have presented work all over Southern California including Focus Fish Studios in Hollywood, Garrison Theater in Claremont, Burnight Theater in Norwalk, Anatomy Riot and The Loft in Los Angeles, and 4x4 at the Bluefoot Lounge in San Diego. casebolt and smithwere selected to participate in Hothouse; a three-week residency at UCLA designed to foster the development of new work by Los Angeles–based dance makers, curated by Victoria Marks. Their first full evening, Popped!, premiered in September 2006 at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica. Their work has been described as “offering terrific dance-theater insight into the human condition” (David Lemberg, ARTSCAPE) and as “funny and accessible” (East Valley Tribune).
Popped! will be remounted at Scripps College February 16th and 17th, 2007. casebolt and smith can also be seen premiering a new work at Anatomy Riot in Los Angeles on February 12th.
Liz Casebolt is a dancer/choreographer/educator currently residing in Los Angeles. She has a B.F.A. in dance from New York University. While in New York, Liz danced with Partridge/Benford/Dance/Music and Claire Henry and Dancers. She has danced in works by Cliff Keuter, Michael Montanero, Ellen Bromberg, Ann Carlson and many others. In Phoenix, AZ Liz was a principal dancer with Frances Cohen's Center Dance Ensemble, performing lead roles in Hamlet, La Llorona, A Streetcar Named Desire, and the title role in The Snow Queen. She was also a founding member of Lisa Starry's Scorpius Dance Theatre, and was the Artistic Director of lizcasebolt&dancers. The Arizona Republic wrote: “Casebolt turns her head or kicks a leg, and you know she expects the world to take note.”
Joel Smith received his Master of Fine Arts degree for Experimental Choreography from UC Riverside in 2004. His choreography has been produced at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, CA on several different occasions, various college campuses around southern California, and his career as a concert-dance artist has taken him to New York City, Boston, Miami, Phoenix, and to Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has been invited by professors in dance studies at both UCLA and UCR to deliver lectures on making dances, the choreographer’s process, and branding in the commercial world: choreographies of a product.
Posted by David Lemberg at 08:40 AM | Comments (0)
Hope McMath, Director of Education at The Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens, Jacksonville, FL, 2-9-07
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens is presenting Temples and Tombs: Treasures of Egyptian Art from The British Museum, on view until March 18, 2007. The Cummer is one of only five stops in the United States for this exhibition, which is organized by the American Federation of Arts and The British Museum. Temples and Tombs is made possible, in part, by the Philip and Janice Levin Foundation Fund for Collection-Based Exhibitions at the American Federation of Arts.
The exhibition comprises nearly 85 pieces from shortly before the Third Dynasty, about 2686 B.C., to the Roman occupation of the fourth century A.D. The collection explores four aspects of ancient Egypt: the king and the temple, which represents the divine in everyday Egyptian life; objects preserved from the lives of artists and nobles; statuary from temples and tombs; and finally the tomb and the significance of death and the afterlife in ancient Egypt. This stunning collection showcases a variety of items, including sculpture, relief, papyri, ostraca, jewelry, and an assortment of funerary items.
The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, located on the St. Johns River in the Riverside Avondale historic district in Jacksonville, FL, is the second largest art museum in Florida and is noted for its collection of more than 6000 masterworks of American and European paintings, beautiful historic gardens in the European style and an outstanding collection of Meissen porcelain. Art Connections is the museum’s nationally renowned interactive learning center where visitors experience art through all senses.
Hope McMath is Director of Education at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens and has 11 years of experience in museum education. During her time at the Cummer, she has designed and implemented programs that bring arts opportunities to over 50,000 students and adults annually. She is the Site Director for the local VSA Arts affiliate. In this role she has been responsible for creating a nationally recognized art festival for over 2000 students with profound disabilities and Women of Vision, a program bringing art making and literacy to a group of women who are blind and visually impaired.
Hope has written successful grants to support programs in arts infusion, school partnerships, youth and family initiatives, arts in healthcare, and disability projects. Due to her efforts, the Cummer was awarded the first Disability Access award from the city of Jacksonville, and has been recognized by the Council for Exceptional Children. She was named Museum Educator of the Year for the state of Florida in 2003 by the Florida Art Education Association and the Art Educator of the Year by the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville in 2005. In addition, she was recognized with the National Community Service Award by VSA Arts in 2005.
Most recently Hope received the national Art Education for the Blind Community Service award for her efforts in making art accessible to children and adults who are blind and by Arts for a Complete Education as the Doris Leeper art educator of the year. She is also a working artist whose relief prints, etchings, and monotypes are exhibited and collected throughout the Southeast.
Posted by David Lemberg at 08:37 AM | Comments (0)
February 02, 2007
Robert Weiss, Artistic Director, Carolina Ballet, 2-2-07
Robert Weiss, former principal dancer with New York City Ballet and past artistic director of Pennsylvania Ballet, was selected in April 1997 as the founding artistic director of the a professional company known as Carolina Ballet, based in Raleigh, NC.
Carolina Ballet serves the ever-expanding Triangle community that includes Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Cary, Research Triangle Park, Fuquay-Varina and beyond. After only seven seasons, Carolina Ballet with a budget of $4.3 million is being recognized as one of the top ten ballet companies in the country. The company totals 31 dancers and has performed 62 times in Raleigh, Winston-Salem, Chapel Hill and Wilmington between September 2005 and May 2006.
During the 2005-2006 season (Carolina Ballet’s eighth season) the company revived Romeo and Juliet and presented another Raleigh premiere of a Balanchine work, Agon, along with Weiss’ Petruschka and a new ballet by Weiss, Petit Ballet Romantique, to music of Leo Delibes. The second half of the season opened with Shakespeare Suite in which Carolina Ballet presented three ballets based on works of William Shakespeare – The Moor’s Pavane choreographed by Jose Limon; Love Speaks choreographed by Lynne Taylor-Corbett to readings by an actor of several of the bard’s sonnets; and Tempest Fantasy, a premiere choreographed by Robert Weiss to the 2004 Pulitzer Prize winning score of Paul Moravec.
Three new ballets choreographed by Robert Weiss, Tyler Walters, and Timour Bourtasenkov were presented in the spring on a program called Spiritual Journey to beautiful liturgical music as an Easter celebration. The season ended with a brand new full evening Cinderella choreographed by Robert Weiss to commissioned music by Karl Moraski. With the exception of Messiah in 1999, Cinderella exceeded ticket sales for previous Carolina Ballet productions.
There were several highlights to the eighth season beyond the success of the productions. In the fall Carolina Ballet officially launched its 3-year “World Class American Ballet – Make it Yours” campaign to raise $10.5 million to stabilize the company and ensure its future. The company received an invitation to travel to China to present Swan Lake during a seven-city two and a half week tour in the fall of 2006; and the company embarked on a collaboration with UNC Wilmington for a summer residency on the campus starting in July 2007.
Carolina Ballet was one of four companies in the country to receive a fellowship grant to participate in the New York Choreographic Institute program. Tyler Walters and Timour Bourtasenkov were selected by the Choreographic Institute to each create a ballet on Carolina Ballet dancers during a two week period at the end of the season, culminating with an informal presentation in the studio.
Posted by David Lemberg at 12:06 PM | Comments (0)
John Malashock, Artistic Director, Malashock Dance, 2-2-07
John Malashock is recognized as one of California’s most productive choreographers over the last 20 years. He brings his many year of experience in the dance and theatre field to his current endeavors as Artistic Director of Malashock Dance, where he has created nearly 60 original choreographic works. He founded Malashock Dance in 1988 after a distinguished performing career with Twyla Tharp Dance in New York.
John began his performing career with the Utah Repertory Dance Theatre, where he worked with such prominent choreographers as Lar Lubovitch, Anna Sokolow, Donald McKayle and Jennifer Muller. With the Tharp Company, John performed worldwide, was featured in numerous television specials (Dance in America, The Catherine Wheel, Twyla Tharp Scrapbook), appeared in the Academy Award winning Film Amadeus, and performed in benefit concerts with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Cynthia Gregory.
John has many collaborative credits to his name. He has choreographed for productions at the La Jolla Playhouse, The Old Globe Theatre and the San Diego Repertory Theater. He was commissioned by the San Diego Symphony to choreograph Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence and by the La Jolla Music Society to choreograph Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat with Esa Pekka Salonen for SummerFest La Jolla. The San Diego Opera commissioned his choreography for its productions of Aida, their World Premiere production of Conquistador, and their new production of Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, which moved on to New York and San Francisco.
Malashock, a four-time EMMY Award winner, has garnered much attention for his media collaborations. John received Emmys for his choreography in the KPBS-TV produced specials of his works, Apologies from the Lower Deck and The Gypsy’s Wife. He collaborated with UCSD-TV on The Soul of Saturday Night and Love & Murder, for which he won additional EMMYs – and these production have gone on to air nationwide on PBS affiliate stations. His 2000 work, Blessings and Curses, received the San Diego Dance Alliance's Tommy Award for Outstanding Overall Production, as well as the KPBS Patte Award for Outstanding Dance Theatre.
John is also a respected teacher and leader within the dance community. He has taught numerous workshops and residencies with Malashock Dance, the Tharp Company and at major universities. He has served as a faculty member at the American Dance Festival, California State University Long Beach, and in Japan at the American Dance Festival/Tokyo. John is a fellow and affiliated artist of the Los Angeles– and Israel–based Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity. Most recently, he founded The Malashock Dance School at the Company’s new home – Dance Place San Diego at NTC Promenade, which he was instrumental in developing for the San Diego dance community.
Posted by David Lemberg at 12:04 PM | Comments (0)
Tony Eprile, Author and Educator, 2-2-07
Tony Eprile is the author of The Persistence of Memory, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and winner of the Koret Jewish Book Prize for 2005. His story collection, Temporary Sojourner & Other South African Stories, was also a New York Times Notable Book.
Mr. Eprile grew up in South Africa and has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ingram Merrill Foundation. He is Visiting Writer at The University of Iowa Writers' Workshop for the year 2006-07, and has taught writing and literature at Wesleyan, Northwestern, Brown, Bennington, Williams, and Skidmore. Mr. Eprile writes book reviews for the New York Times and San Diego Union-Tribune, and articles on the food of Southern Africa for Gourmet Magazine.
Posted by David Lemberg at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)