The original was considered exceptionally daring back in 1924, with its allusions to sexual hijinks among the demi-mondaines and its depiction of bisexuality. In 2013, these themes risk putting a hip Bay Area crowd to sleep.

Imagine trying to reconstruct Beethoven's Ninth Symphony from a handful of reviews of the original performance. This is the task that dance historians Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer embarked upon, when they began to piece together The Rite of Spring.

I recently spoke with Iyer and Bhargava in separate phone conversations, to discover how they navigated between Stravinsky and Holi.

Turns out that Cusack, who ports a strong intellectual bent, is a huge "Rite of Spring" guy. Loving the music and fascinated by the 1913 Stravinsky riots, he ventured to Bunker Hill to see the performance.

We may wish to belittle, deny, evade, deprecate, or run away from the delineation of best/better/bad/awful, in that it involves making judgments of quality. But we must sooner or latter come to grips with this hard reality, or else our lives and commitment to Music cease to be serious.

The opportunity to bring together the highly trained dancers of Jones's company with the gifted actors of Bogart's troupe allowed for a collaboration that could recapture the visceral, interdisciplinary action of the original Rite.

Let me make a bold proposition in this regard. Music appeals to the mind, emotions, and body. It unites these three aspects of man in a way that perhaps no other art form does.

"These two blocks -- from the 12 Preludes by Debussy and the 12 Symphonic Etudes by Schumann -- are compositions by two very different composers, but both of them share a great fantasy, and they are masters of the intimate world."

In the modern era of jazz, finding a true composer to follow is not the easiest thing to do. Especially if the composer can actually write beautifully melodic and emotionally deep music. Vince Mendoza does this and more.

With Diaghilev's vision and inclination to perfection, the group gained international renown for staging some of the most famous ballets in the world.

Let it never be said that Walt Disney wasn't ambitious. Hot on the heels of 'Snow White' and 'Pinocchio,' two fairy tales that translated well on the ...