Toba Singer, author of “Fernando Alonso, the Father of Cuban Ballet” (University Press of Florida 2013), and “First Position: a Century of Ballet Artists” (Praeger 2007), writes for international dance journals and websites, and has served as an advisor to the San Francisco Museum of Performance and Design. She was the University Press of Florida author representative at the 2013 Miami International Book Fair. “Fernando Alonso, the Father of Cuban Ballet” was nominated for the Latin American Student Association Bryce Award, the de la Torre Research and Dance Scholars Award, and the Commonwealth Club California Book Award.
FilmSan Francisco,
“Birds of Passage” is a true story and a compelling one. Set in Colombia, it tells of the clash that results when outside drug traffickers impose capitalist property relations on an ancient and centuries-old indigenous culture.
In ...
FilmCA,
Based on a spectacular 1965 museum robbery by two students in Mexico City, “Museo,” begins with the voice of Juan, a character played nuance by nuance by Gael García Bernal. Juan has come to the bitter, if faulty conclusion ...
FilmCA,
“Ernesto,” a fictionalized account of a true story, opens in Tokyo, where a team of Cubans headed by Ernesto Che Guevara, is en route to confer with the Japanese Ministry of Trade. Before the team arrives, we see Japanese economists ...
DanceSan Francisco,
Kate Duhamel is unrepentant. “I’m responsible,” she admits. “I wanted to re-situate high level ballet in an Indie Pop or contemporary band multi-angle context, narrative-based, in a music venue.” She predicts that “Fury” will reach the potential audience that is ...
Film
On a rainy night in 1980, Robert Shafran’s father realized he’d left his umbrella behind. He and his wife were one of three adoptive couples that had just met with the Louise Wise [adoption] Agency Executive Board. They met with ...
Dance
Gabriel Ledón is Artistic Director of the contemporary dance company Cuarto Fractal, and has also been Executive Director of Brazeros Dance Company in Los Angeles, Calif. Ledón is a trained visual artist as well as a dancer and choreographer. On ...
DanceSan Francisco,
“¡Socorro!” in Spanish means “Help!” of the kind that begs for succor, comfort, a poultice for one’s wounds. If the San Francisco dance cohort, having plateaued about three years ago, sent up such a cry, then the goddess Terpsichore ...
Film
It’s a dominoes game of unrequited love that begins with a deathbed alarm sounded by the household staff at the sumptuous manor in the Russian countryside belonging to sister and brother Irina (Annette Bening) and Sorin (Brian Dennehy). Though it’s ...
DanceSan Francisco,
At the San Francisco Ballet Gala earlier this year, Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson predicted that the Unbound Festival would locate the company at the “epicenter of world ballet.” The ballet world is bigger than North America and Western Europe, and ...
Film
When my son was six and a student at Mountaineer Montessori School, he learned the Shaker hymn, “’Simple Gifts.” “I hate that song,” he said to me one afternoon, as we drove away from his school. His vehemence took me ...
