Amalia Ledesma and Ernesto Martinez had danced together a few times before at Thursday night Street Salsa at the Bruin Bear, but the natural cadence of live music sparked something new between them at an open invitation salsa social in the Ackerman Grand Ballroom. As they matched their steps to the salsa beat and to […]
Category Archives: Theater & Fine Arts
‘Cloud 9’ play employs gender swapping to challenge societal norms
The costume designer pulls the corset strings as tight as they will go around the actor’s torso, restricting his breathing but allowing him to catch a glimpse of being a 19th-century woman for a moment. The actor, Joey Fabrizi, stars in “Cloud 9,” a play which features gender swapping among the characters and actors. “It’s […]
UCLA alum ‘Breaking Through’ to audiences with passion for performance
Six naked male strippers stood with their backs to the audience, each clutching a small hat over his genitals. As they turned around, one of them dropped his hat and gave the spectators more of a flash than they had expected, before dazzling stage lights blinded the room. It was the opening night of the […]
Choreographers reunite in two-part showcase ‘My Dear and Displacement’
A dancer in a black shirt moves slowly, silhouetted against a dim gray background and surrounded by performers in khaki trench coats. In an instant, the dancer is indistinguishable from the other performers – he is now draped in a khaki trench coat, cloaking his identity from the audience. The dancer soon sheds the trench […]
Unexpected course leads student to path in acting, comedy
Ben Ellerbrock had the choice between either cooking or acting class in high school. When the speech and debate team was full, he arrived at theater his freshman year only after his counselor told him that cooking would not fit in with his class schedule. Though brought about by accident, Ellerbrock’s decision to act paved […]
Twelve artists showcase African culture-inspired art at Fowler Museum
A masked figure cloaked head to toe in white stepped onto the streets of Lagos, Nigeria. People chatting with fellow shoppers and haggling for merchandise looked up at the figure and moved aside in reverence, understanding the significance of the costume belonging to the exclusively male ancestor ritual of egungun. The person wearing the egungun […]
Tony Todd to play Jack Johnson in “Ghost in the House”
Introducing first in the black corner, weighing in at 205 pounds, hailing from Galveston, Texas – they call him the Galveston Giant – it’s Jack Johnson. And now in the white corner, weighing in at 225 pounds and hailing from Carroll, Ohio, James “The Boilermaker” Jeffries. When Johnson boxed Jeffries for the “fight of the […]