New BCAM

BCAM is the new contemporary art wing of LACMA. Sandy and I went on a private group tour and really enjoyed the building and the artwork. The docent did a really great job of providing some history and context to the various styles of art which really helped to make some of the modern pieces more interesting. For instance, she related the minimalists (Ellsworth Kelly was the example) back to Abstract Expressionism and forward to Pop Art. I really liked some of the Jeff Koons (balloon dog, cracked egg) and Damien Hirst (butterfly mosaics) pieces but my absolute favourites were 2 large scale Richard Serra torqued steel structures. I saw one of these at MOMA last year and I never get tired of experiencing these structures. Outside on the plaza of the new building is a great assemblage of LA street lamps. And now when you go from the new area to the old LACMA plaza, you walk through a new large scale sculpture by Tony Smith called 'Smoke' which is really beautiful in a strange way.

More Legoland & Ranunculus

Friday morning was spent back at Legoland. Neve was even more excited today to go back. We found a different water play area, which was harder for her to enjoy, mostly because there was no way for her mom or dad to be there with her and help her adjust (they could have but would've gotten soaked). Still, she got a lot of fun out of it. She went with her dad on the jungle car ride and apparently enjoyed it so much she cried when she had to get off. There were more amazing Lego creations for the adults to marvel at. After a quick nap (at least for me), Mei and I took Mason to the Ranunculus flower fields. They are in bloom in spring and were spectacularly gorgeous. The fields are not grown for cut flowers but to harvest the bulbs to sell. They also grew beautiful roses and some crazy looking poinsettias (including 4' tall variety with flowers in a big 6" ball of red).

Legoland

This morning was spent at Legoland. A mecca for small children. More than half of the crowd is under 4' tall. There are a few areas that are targeted for the under 3 crowd and in the Miniland, where all of the miniature buildings are, they have installed buttons for the kids to press to turn on music or make little fountains spout miniature water at little Lego people (because for kids Neve's age these are just random buildings). The details in the vignettes are pretty amazing. They've got window washers on one of the NYC skyscrapers, the sea lions that camp out near Fisherman's Wharf in SF are there, and there's a jazz funeral in the New Orleans set. The least recognizable scenes for me were Southern California, go figure. I knew three of the structures (Hollywood Bowl, Griffith Observatory, Chinese Theatre) but the rest, no clue. Neve had a great time at the water splash area. The trick here is the kids need to jump on a coloured circle to get the water to turn on. She wasn't quite heavy enough to make it work and so it took her awhile to get the location specificity, but she had a great time jumping nonetheless.

Liu Fang Yuan (Garden of Flowing Fragrance)

The 3's were in town this weekend and we took in a bunch cultural activities. Last night we went to Disney Hall and heard the LA Phil with violinist Christian Tetzlaff. He played Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major. The Phil also played 'Also sprach Zarathustra', the 2001 Space Odyssey music. The violin piece was beautiful and the hall allowed for the most delicate notes to be heard really clearly (along with the audience coughing, dropping things, etc.) The '2001' piece was really fun. It includes the organ and when that thing lets go with a few deep bass notes, you feel it in your chest more than you hear it. We were sitting in the Terrace section and had a great view of the percussions, which have a prominent role in this piece.
Today we went to Huntington Library and Garden to check out the new Chinese garden. It's modeled after some famous gardens in Suzhou. There are lots of pathways, pavilions, a small pond with a goose, a duck and a bunch of carp and of course beautiful plantings. There are areas still in need of work. It was well into the 90s today and some of the shaded areas and pavilions made the visit a little more pleasant.
After a delicious Spanish lunch at Bar Celona, we spent the rest of the afternoon at the Norton Simon. They have a wonderful selection of sculpture (Degas dancers and Rodins) plus their Southeast Asian collection is impressive. There was a special exhibition of Krishna artwork which were very detailed and beautiful.

Complexions

This is a contemporary ballet/modern dance company based in NYC. Gigi and I saw them on Friday. They did several short pieces to various styles of music. I loved a couple of the things they did but was less enamoured of some others. The piece danced to Chopin was marred, to me, by an unpleasant arrangement of the music. I love Chopin so that was disappointing. Desmond Richardson, who is one of the company co-founders, danced to a piece choreographed by Taye Diggs, the actor/model. I didn't really love this piece either. Richardson is probably one of the best male dancers around but I didn't feel like the choreography made the best use of his talents. I thoroughly enjoyed the excerpts of 'Moody Booty Blues' danced to blues music, and 'Chapters' danced to Marvin Gaye. These pieces were sharp, dynamic, strong and beautifully expressive of the music. The dancers in the company are extremely athletic with long limbs and slender bodies (for the most part) and the choreography (which combines modern and ballet technique) really shows them off.

March Madness indeed!

For the last 4 or 5 years, I've participated in a men's college basketball tournament pool. I know nothing about college basketball and don't have an allegiance to any of the teams that play, however it's fun to be involved and have a stake in the games. Every year, I'm in the bottom of the pack. This year, I ended up near the top right from the very beginning. Prior to this year, I never figured I'd make it in the top 10 let alone the top 3 spots. This year however I had a chance to be #1 (if Memphis had won). So, now of course, #2 is disappointing! Still, it really is a miracle that I placed as high as that. Just goes to show, ignorance of a subject is not necessarily a barrier to success! Next year, I fully expect to be back in the lower rankings. I will bask in the glow of second place until then.

La La La Human Steps

That's the name of a dance company that Peggy and I saw on Saturday. The show they are currently doing is called Amjad and is a riff on Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty. Wow, what a performance. We both loved it. The performance consists of 5 female and 4 male dancers plus 4 musicians on stage (3 strings and a piano). There are 3 round screens overhead that occasionally shows videos of various images relating to the two original ballets. The music is variations on the original Tchaikovsky scores for the two ballets and is beautiful. This company has a unique dance style. The movements are extremely quick (beats with the foot are mere flashes of movement). Turns are done at high speed. Arm movements are aggressive and sharp. All the women wear pointe shoes and in some cases they are on pointe through most of the performance. There is one man who dances in pointe shoes and his duet with a female dancer is one of the most beautiful pas de deux I've seen. Despite the stripped down staging and the modern vocabulary, this show captures all of the beauty and tragedy of these classic ballets. (Their website is in French.) They are traveling to Asia next and then will be in New York City in November and back home in Montreal in 2009. Definitely worth seeing.