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Dispatches
THE SHARON DISNEY LUND SCHOOL OF DANCE Having premiered the full-evening work otro teatro last year at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis and New York Live Arts, luciana achugar (bfa 95) took the piece to her native Uruguay in December for a run at Teatro Solís in Montevideo. The Guggenheim Fellowshipwinning choreographer is next presenting otro teatro at the Fusebox Festival in Austin. Durational choreography by Maria Hassabi (mfa 94) is the subject of a current Hammer Projects presentation at the ucla Hammer Museum. Following the recent standout projects premiere and intermission (both 2013), Hassabi continues to examine the conventions of display and live performance in relation to the idea of physical “stillness.” Hassabi and three other dancers are carrying out an extended choroeography throughout the museum during its normal hours of operation. Jacques Heim’s (mfa 91) gravitydefying company Diavolo is now additionally monikered with the trademarked tagline “Architecture in Motion,” referring to the troupe’s use of custom-engineered
(6) Courtesy of James Pianka
©Ed Ruscha. Photo: Paul Ruscha
Courtesy of the artist. Photos: Robertas Narkus
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architectural forms with which dancers interact. Diavolo/Architecture in Motion is continuing its national tour through May, with stops in Houston, Dallas, University Park, pa, Kalamazoo, Des Moines, Minneapolis, Denver, Aspen and Portland. Kate Weare (bfa 94) and her ensemble, Kate Weare Company, are marking their 10-year anniversary this month with five performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s bam Fisher venue. The program features the world premiere of Unstruck Sound, a trio set to an original score by Curtis Macdonald, as well as passages from Bright Land (2010), Bridge of Sighs (2008) and Drop Down (2007). In addition, dancers from San Francisco’s odc are performing Still Life with Avalanche, the result of a collaboration last year between Weare and Brenda Way. In related news, Weare’s company has received a Dance Touring Grant from the New England Foundation for the Arts (nefa) through the National Dance Project (ndp) to support touring Unstruck Sound through the fall of 2016.
(4) Ed Ruscha, smash, 1963. Oil on canvas, 71 3/4 x 67 1/4 in.
SCHOOL OF FILM/ VIDEO Fourth-year undergrad Mikheil Antadze traveled to the Vienna International Film Festival for screenings of his found-footage documentary The Many Faces of Comrade Gelovani, which was a selection of the Viennale’s experimental “Propositions” program. Antadze’s 67-minute work explores the mythmaking apparatus of Stalinism through the career of Mikheil Gelovani, a Georgian actor regularly cast as Joseph Stalin during the Soviet leader’s reign. The shorts program “A Million Dreams” included Square Dance, Los Angeles County, California, 2013, by Sílvia das Fadas (mfa 14), who constructed the film from photographs taken by Russell Lee in rural America during the Great Depression. Lastly, faculty member James Benning (see next column), a Viennale favorite, was represented by two new films: natural history, a documentation of the spaces hidden from public view inside Vienna’s Museum of Natural History; and farocki, a cloudscape originally meant as a personal gift for the late experimental film luminary Harun Farocki.
(5) Maria Hassabi, intermission, 2013. Performance and installation, Cypriot and Lithuanian Pavilion, Venice Biennale. Featuring artwork (top) by Phanos Kyriacou.
Three works by CalArts filmmakers were among the 25 titles inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2014: alumna Lisze Bechtold’s (mfa 76, bfa 74) hand-drawn experimental animation Moon Breath Beat (1980), a five-minute short made when she was a student; faculty member James Benning’s 13 Lakes (2004), which consists of 13 10-minute takes of different American lakes; and John Lasseter’s (bfa 79, see opposite) Luxo Jr. (1986), a two-minute Pixar animation that was the first 3d film to be nominated for an Oscar. “The National Film Registry showcases the extraordinary diversity of America’s film heritage and the disparate strands making it so vibrant,” said James H. Billington, the librarian of Congress. “By preserving these films, we protect a crucial element of American creativity, culture and history.” The remaining 22 inductees last year included titles such as Rio Bravo, Rosemary’s Baby, Saving Private Ryan and The Big Lebowski. Writer-director Patrick Brice’s (bfa 11) second feature, The Overnight, premiered in the u.s. Dramatic Competition of the Sundance Film Festival. Starring Taylor Schilling (Orange Is the New Black), Adam Scott (Parks and Recreation) and Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore),
(6) Roots, a game developed by James Pianka.