Author Archives: Rhea Cortado

John Pham, a 27-year-old undergraduate student in the East Asian Studies department, still goes bug-eyed when he sees his comic anthology “Epoxy Press” on the shelf at Meltdown Comics bookstore on Sunset Boulevard. “It’s definitely cool seeing “˜Epoxy’ in stores unexpectedly,” said Pham. “I don’t really get used to that. Within the past year, Pham’s […]

Corporate hipsters can pick off ideas from Giant Robot, but they can never outrun the trend-setting magazine. “It’s cool that buyers for Urban Outfitters shop at the Giant Robot store, but we’ll always be one step ahead. … If the world gets cooler, that’s OK,” said Martin Wong, co-founder of Giant Robot and the store […]

Los Angeles may finally have a defining feature to represent the city with the opening of the long-awaited Walt Disney Concert Hall. The city, along with private organizations, has invested millions of public and private dollars into Bunker Hill on Grand Avenue with hopes that concert-goers will enjoy the community rather than hop back on […]

Edward Braff wants to kill himself. He figures his life can’t get any worse, so he rigs up a noose, sticks his neck in it and hangs. Contrary to the laws of nature, he does not die, and his life gets worse. “The Hanging Man,” an original work by Britain’s Improbable Theater Company, is about […]

Twin brothers “Frit” and “Frat” Fuller, two newly appointed faculty members in the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures, are leading a dance class at Focus Fish studios in Santa Monica. But Frit doesn’t count out the steps, he uses the percussive sound of his voice. “One, two, three and shoop ba ba ba, […]

The George Piper Dances, or “Ballet Boyz,” attempted to push the boundaries of ballet and contemporary dance this past weekend at Royce Hall. Known for their reality-TV-like clips projected in-between dance moves, the Boyz fed the public’s obsession with seeing celebrities at their most human level.  Whether it was the company’s founders falling on their backs […]

International cultures collided, literally, on stage last Sunday at the Aratani/Japan American Theatre in Little Tokyo as the Art of Rice Traveling Theater performed their production about Asia’s essential crop. The company made their message clear midway through the night as two rice farmers ““ one American and one Balinese ““ bumped into each other, […]