The program began with the seamless, often impish ingenuity of “Swipe,” a West Coast premiere, which puns seven ways to Sunday– it swipes movement, especially African steps. It swipes dance motifs — seaweed arms from the “The Little Mermaid,” semaphoring from “Artifact Suite” and the pert bounces from “Apollo”. It swipes the air, the body and floor with body parts, and by association, it swipes the music: Gabrielle Prokofiev, grandson of the great Russian composer Sergei, stole and brilliantly remixed his own “String Quartet No.2.” The dance got under way in a circle, starting with calisthenic arm thrusts that arched the back, as though the group were performing West African dance boiled down to cool abstraction. The five men and women then seamlessly morphed into line patterns, exits and entrances, returning several times to the circle, as to a touchstone.
“First of all, female sexuality seen in a natural way is very rare in movies,” del Toro says, “It’s always objectifying, always serving glamour or a wink-wink perversity, It doesn’t exist except from the male gaze, What I wanted to do was show how integral water was to her, When you’re blessed to have your first encounter in the bath where you’d been alone, it’s a very special repairing ballet slippers sf of your soul.”, “I land in her bathtub as my place of refuge,” Jones says about his amphibious character, “Now we have no barriers between us, … so our touching becomes a big love scene, It had a purity and innocence to it that communicated volumes, I thought.”..
After fighting with studio executives to get his war movie “Red Tails” distributed last year, the filmmaker insists he’s sick of the politics of Hollywood and is retiring. Maybe that means we don’t have to suffer through more aliens in the next Indiana Jones movie. Lucas told film magazine Empire “I’m moving away from all my businesses, I’m finishing all my obligations and I’m going to retire to my garage with my saw and hammer and build hobby movies.
For the past 14 years, the festival has given San Jose resident Robert Kuboi an opportunity to celebrate a part of his heritage — and to share it with others, Kuboi, who’s half Japanese, wore a casual kimono and hat to the festival Saturday, similar to those that Samurais wore when they weren’t in combat, he said, As he walked up and down North 5th Street, people stopped him to admire his garb and asked to take pictures, “I come down here whenever there’s a festival here and I dress up,” Kuboi said, “I want people to engage me … I have fun doing this, I meet people from all over and I want people to enjoy their visit here, I hope they come back year after year, Without them, we ballet slippers sf don’t have a community.”..
Baseball fans saw Giants radio announcer Mike Krukow, and “Voice of the Giants” stadium announcer Renel Brooks-Moon, in the audience. Krukow’s son, Wes Krukow, is a dancer with Smuin Ballet. The evening included a cocktail reception, dinner, and a performance by Smuin dancers, including a comical choreographed version of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First?” routine. Co-chaired by Patti and Jerry Hume, and Athena and John Konstin, the event raised more than $380,000 for the troupe.
