UCLA health program hosts live reading of ‘James Dean America’

This post was updated June 4 at 12:08 p.m. James Dean might have died in 1955, but he was brought back to life this weekend. On Saturday, the UCLA Center for Health Services and Society hosted a live table read of the screenplay “James Dean America” in collaboration with the Healing and Education through the Arts […]

Student-produced play uses gods to mirror themes reflected in actors’ own lives

Gods and goddesses will rule over destruction and chaos from campus this week. An event titled “An Evening of Devised Works,” running Thursday through Saturday in Melnitz Hall, will catalogue their actions. The event’s single play, titled “A Creation Myth,” is the result of Cohort 6 – a group of graduate acting students – partnering […]

Q&A: Composer discusses collaboration, creative process of upcoming three-part concert

Nico Muhly’s performance piece may be in three parts, but it is not fractured. The composer has created works that include classical pieces and film soundtracks, and will deliver a three-part performance, “Archives, Friends, Patterns,” at The Theatre at Ace Hotel on Friday. The first part of the concert, hosted by the Center for the […]

Alumni works featured in exhibition exploring LA film history’s black narratives

A critic in the ’80s told L.A. Rebellion filmmaker Alile Sharon Larkin that her short film was terrible. Years later, the same critic watched the short at a screening of the L.A. Rebellion archives and wrote a positive review. Larkin is one of many alumni whose work is shown at “Time is Running Out of […]

Second Take: Failure of ‘Alita: Battle Angel’ shows that costly CGI can’t save a bad film

The eyes of “Alita: Battle Angel” loom from billboards throughout Los Angeles. James Cameron’s latest blockbuster, which released Thursday, features two hours and two minutes of computer-generated image anime eyes, calling back to the film’s anime origin. It is also noteworthy because it made $27 million its opening weekend premiere – a mere fraction of […]

Favianna Rodriguez’s ‘Butterfly Effect’ to advocate for free, boundless art

Favianna Rodriguez originally created an artwork of monarch butterflies to advocate for freedom of migration back in 2012. Seven years later, her butterflies are the namesake for an on-campus panel discussion. “The Butterfly Effect: Activism & Transformation through the Arts” will be hosted by the Visual and Performing Arts Education Program in Kaufman Hall on […]

Authors consider own backgrounds in portrayals of refugee and immigrant experiences

In the early 1990s, writer Viet Thanh Nguyen read a book about the Mexican-American border he found timely: “Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border,” by Luís Alberto Urrea. Twenty years later, the two authors will join forces to discuss refugees and immigrants. The two hail from drastically different cultural backgrounds […]