Debra Levine
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DEBRA LEVINE is a Los Angeles Times dance critic. A Pittsburgh native, she has lived in New York, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tel Aviv, nurturing her arts passion in all cities. In 2009 Debra led the successful grassroots movement to save the classic film program at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Levine blogs about dance, film, music and urban culture on arts•meme.

Blog Entries by Debra Levine

The Academy Wishes Gene Kelly A Happy 100th Birthday

(4) Comments | Posted May 21, 2012 | 9:51 AM

2012-05-21-GeneKellycolor.jpg A parade of Technicolor-tinged dance sequences enchanted a full house at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater Thursday night. "A Centennial Tribute to Gene Kelly," the first of a two-part event hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored...

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Screen Siren Peggy Cummins Returns to Hollywood for TCM Fest

(1) Comments | Posted April 23, 2012 | 5:13 PM

2012-04-18-GunCrazyCummins.jpgIt was wild watching Gun Crazy (1950) projected on the humongous screen of the Egyptian Theatre as I did on April 14 at TCM Fest.

Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo's pulpy film noir concerns a couple of newly weds; played by John Dall and...

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TCM Fest: "Frankenstein's Gonna Bite Me and Kill Me," Said Five-Year-Old Mel Brooks

(0) Comments | Posted April 18, 2012 | 12:22 PM

2012-04-18-melbrooks11.jpgIn a TCM Fest curtain talk with UCLA costume historian Deborah Nadoolman-Landis (she's married to film director John Landis) prior to a screening of Cecil B. DeMille's Cleopatra (1934), designer Bob Mackie (pictured at right) described an early influence. It was...

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To Cher, With Love From Travis Banton

(0) Comments | Posted April 18, 2012 | 2:11 AM

2012-04-18-bob_mackieTCM.jpgIn a TCM Fest curtain talk with UCLA costume historian Deborah Nadoolman-Landis (she's married to film director John Landis) prior to a screening of Cecil B. DeMille's Cleopatra (1934), designer Bob Mackie (pictured at right) described an early influence. It was...

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Jazz Review: Keith Jarrett At Walt Disney Concert Hall

(0) Comments | Posted April 5, 2012 | 3:44 PM

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Keith Jarrett, the 66 year-old jazz legend, opened his solo concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall Tuesday night by plucking on his Steinway's strings, avant-garde style. He closed the evening with a love letter to Los Angeles: "Somewhere Over the Rainbow,"...

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After "The Artist" Wins Best Picture, Mary Pickford, Silent-Film Icon Orphaned by Parent Foundation

(0) Comments | Posted March 22, 2012 | 9:12 PM

The Mary Pickford Institute for Film Education (MPI), a ten-year-running nonprofit organization that preserves the silent film legacy of producer/actress Mary Pickford and uses her example to teach young children about film history and socially conscious filmmaking, has had its funding yanked by its long-time supporter, the Mary...

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Dance Review: Paul Taylor Dance Company at the Koch Theater

(0) Comments | Posted March 21, 2012 | 2:50 PM

2012-03-20-paultaylor030.jpgLast week was heady for American modern dance in New York. The Martha Graham Dance Company performed historic works from the great one's canon at the Joyce Theater. Further uptown, in both geography and symbolism, the Paul Taylor Dance Company closed...

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Paul Taylor Dance Company Moves Uptown

(4) Comments | Posted March 6, 2012 | 12:21 PM

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A joyous event for modern dance takes place at Lincoln Center next Tuesday evening, March 13, when the Paul Taylor Dance Company will plant its collective bare foot onto the hallowed stage of the David H. Koch Theater. A massive...

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Classical Underground Rocks

(0) Comments | Posted February 17, 2012 | 2:00 PM

2012-02-17-IMG_4223.JPGClamor filled the central-Los Angeles industrial loft last Thursday evening, when the Russian expatriate painter, Alexey Steele, and his wife Olga, opened their funky-junky, atelier-style home to the music lovers of Los Angeles.

Amidst a clutter of books, art supplies, burning...

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Between Pina and a Hard Place

(1) Comments | Posted January 12, 2012 | 6:49 PM

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Heavy-hitting filmmakers are turning their cameras on dance and it's an honor. It's also a puzzlement, to the dance world. It surprises us. We thought that the only folk attending dance performances were fellow dancers, parents, and dance critics. But clearly...

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Hitchcock Stars Add Glamour To Film-Buff Cruise

(1) Comments | Posted December 14, 2011 | 3:26 PM

When Turner Classic Movies announced its first-ever "classic film cruise" combining a full program of movie mania with the pleasures of cruising -- fresh air, glistening ocean, tropical cocktails -- Graham Phillips, and his wife Laurel, married for 22 years, signed on.

He's the former CEO of Ogilvy Mather,...

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Janet Jackson, Dynamo Diva, Pleases California Performance

(12) Comments | Posted December 5, 2011 | 3:15 PM

2011-12-03-janet200.JPGTwenty minutes after Janet Jackson's much-anticipated "Number Ones: Up Close and Personal" gala concert was scheduled to start on Thursday evening at Palm Desert's McCallum Theatre, some in the audience began to squirm in their seats. The theater's silver-haired, black-tied patrons, though...

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David Hallberg, Matinee Idol, in Bolshoi Ballet "Sleeping Beauty" Simulcast This Weekend

(0) Comments | Posted November 16, 2011 | 5:55 PM

2011-11-14-davidhallbergrosalieoconner.jpgWhen we last saw David Hallberg -- the first American to join the prestigious ranks of Bolshoi Ballet principal dancers -- he was clamoring through modern works by Nacho Duato and Mauro Bigonzetti as a guest artist in "Kings of the Dance"...

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Hollywood Dance Super-Agent, Julie McDonald, honored at Palm Desert's "Dance Under the Stars" Choreography Festival

(0) Comments | Posted November 15, 2011 | 2:27 PM

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Pictured at left, Julie McDonald, super-agent to the top crop of commercial dancers and choreographers in New York and Hollywood, poses with long-time clients, Toni Basil and Kenny Ortega.

Julie McDonald was honored last weekend with a Lifetime Achievement...

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Ballets Russes Updated: Aspen Santa Fe Ballet Turns 15

(0) Comments | Posted September 12, 2011 | 2:39 PM

2011-09-11-SergeDiaghilevphotographbyJandeSterlecki1916.jpgOne hundred years ago, in 1911, the great Ballets Russes impresario Sergei Diaghilev labored -- without e-mail -- to book his troupe in suitable theaters, meet his payroll, negotiate with presenters, hang on to his dancers, engage artistic collaborators, remedy company squabbles,...

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Jodi Melnick & David Neumann Premiere Their Profound "July" at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival

(0) Comments | Posted August 17, 2011 | 2:44 PM

"July," a stirring dance duet whose refined physical beauty gives form to its tender, vulnerable emotions, had its premiere Wednesday night before the great open backstage door of Jacob Pillow Dance Festival's Doris Duke Theater.

...
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Art World Colonoscopy

(2) Comments | Posted August 12, 2011 | 11:20 AM

Everyone in Los Angeles is jumping on the high-speed train, oh wait, we don't have one... everyone's powering north in their cars on the killer Golden State Freeway. Destination, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for...

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Rennie Harris's Reign Rains Down on China

(0) Comments | Posted July 28, 2011 | 4:57 PM

A woman stands at stage center, her knee-length black dress draping loosely over trousers. She's trembling. Flashing lights -- a disco? faux lightening? -- cut the stage's darkness. The sound of thunder, then rain, pours from the speakers. It's loud, overpowering. The woman suffers, she's convulsing; her corn-rowed hair flies...

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Alexei Ratmansky's Disturbingly Revisionist The Bright Stream Delights Ballet World

(1) Comments | Posted July 23, 2011 | 1:18 PM

2011-07-21-carmageddon250.jpgDespite best efforts, California authorities (the people who brought you Ronald "Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev!" Reagan) could not put the kibosh on American Ballet Theatre's The Bright Stream, choreographed by their new in-house guy, Alexei Ratmansky. Clearly controlled by Soviet...

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Wolf Trap Commission Gets Choreographer Jorma Elo Out Of The House

(2) Comments | Posted July 7, 2011 | 12:55 PM

2011-07-06-JormaElo.jpgA commission to create a brand new ballet for a boutique troupe like Aspen Santa Fe Ballet is a really big deal, even for a well established choreographer like Jorma Elo. In order for the Finnish-born dance maker to continue to dazzle...

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