UC BERKELEY TO HOST AILEY DANCE CAMP; PROGRAM AIMED AT UNDERACHIEVING KIDS REINFORCES THE LINK BETWEEN ART, DISCIPLINE
A six-week dance camp created by the internationally acclaimed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater will be brought to the West Coast for the first time. Hosted by Cal Performances, the program targets underachieving students whose academic performance would benefit from the artistic regimen. The UC Berkeley locale would make this…
REVIEW: “JOHN Q.” ODS ON MORAL, MEDICAL ISSUES
“John Q.” is so earnest and well-meaning, and so stocked with talent, that you almost forget the sheer, ponderous awfulness of its script. Once you leave the theater and the charismatic, benign influence of Denzel Washington, you realize your goodwill has been horribly hijacked. Taken hostage might be a good…
RIDE THE HORSE TO A MULTICULTURAL CAROUSEL
Wearing their best red outfits, urbane locals trade the fork for nimble chopsticks or stand in the rain at the sidelines of the San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade. Even though Jan. 1 marks the official U.S. holiday, many living in the Bay Area have long partaken in Lunar New…
YEAR OF THE HORSE; A LOOK BACK ON THE FUTURE RINGS AN EERIE TRUTH
The warnings were dire. Civil unrest, terrorist attacks, assassination attempts and continued electrical shortages. The cautions didn’t come from the CIA or FBI. They came from South Bay consultant Y.C. Sun, versed in the oracle art of Z-Ping (a derivative of I-Ching). His succinct summary: “This year, there’s a lot…
Choreographer gives rich black oral tradition new an expression
SAN FRANCISCO _ Dance is a silent language. It speaks in a vocabulary of gestures and footwork that at once interprets music and communicates the prose of movement. To have dance tell the story of storytelling, though, seems a contrary notion. And it’s certainly ambitious, which explains why Robert Moses…
THE WORD OF MOSES; AWARD-WINNING CHOREOGRAPHER GIVES ORAL TRADITION A NEW EXPRESSION
Dance is a silent language. It speaks in a vocabulary of gestures and footwork that at once interprets music and communicates the prose of movement. To have dance tell the story of storytelling, though, seems a contrary notion. And it’s certainly ambitious, which explains why Robert Moses had to make…
CAT IN THE CRADLE; FOR FELINES AND DOGS, MASSAGE IS BETTER THAN HEAVY PETTING
Scaredy cats are Maryjean Ballner’s specialty. She props her feet on the wooden desk and gently cradles the timid gray short-hair known as Jasmine. Eventually, the kitty — who has been a resident at the East County Animal shelter in Dublin for more than a month — untucks her head…
GENEROUS TIMES READERS GRANT WISHES OF NONPROFITS; ORGANIZATIONS RECEIVE MUCH NEEDED SUPPLIES AS PART OF OUR ANNUAL LIST
Nonprofit organizations are the givers, the ones who do year-round what some of us only remember to do during the holidays. And for the last four years, the TimeOut holiday wish list has given them the opportunity to ask for what they would want for themselves. Last season local donations…
“BLACK HAWK” A STRONG DOSE OF HISTORY
The Black Hawk is a helicopter, the apotheosis of America’s muscular might, technological supremacy and military invulnerability. This aura of invincibility took a shattering, lethal blow when Somalia militiamen shot down not one but two UH-60L Black Hawks on Oct. 3, 1993. Famine and warlords intercepting emergency food supplies had…
CHINESE BALANCING ACTS; ACROBATS’ METHODS INFLUENCING WESTERN TROUPES
Girls dance atop light bulbs in Cirque du Soleil. Circus performers dive through hoops. A lithe pole acrobat becomes part of a heist caper in director Steven Soderbergh’s remake of “Ocean’s Eleven.” Chinese acrobatics have astounded audiences for 2,000 years, but it has only been in the last quarter-century that…