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SoCal Mexican Roots Rock and Soul Band
Grammy Award-winning group La Santa Cecilia, named for the patron saint of music, is composed of accordionist and requinto player Jose ‘Pepe’ Carlos, bassist Alex Bendaña, percussionist Miguel ‘Oso’ Ramirez, and vocalist ‘La Marisoul.’ They were raised here fully bilingual and bicultural. They are dedicated to voicing the experience of a new bicultural generation in […]
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Mariachi Over the Rainbow
Mariachi is a music genre steeped in machismo, by straight men in glitzy charro suits and sombreros singing songs of love and lust about women. Mariachi Arcoiris de Los Angeles (Rainbow Mariachi) challenges that. The group prides itself on being the world’s first LGBTQ mariachi band. Their tight, energetic, and intricate sound has been honed […]
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Music is Community
For Andrés Martín, “music is community,” and his career path bears out this assertion. Native of Buenos Aires, Argentina and resident of Tijuana, Mexico bassist, arranger, and composer Martín has performed with orchestras, chamber ensembles, and as a soloist throughout Latin America, Europe, and the United States. Since his arrival in Tijuana Martín has been […]
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A Life in Theatre: Ariane Mnouchkine
As Ariane Mnouchkine states in this rare and candid discussion, “We simply work better with love…. we work better by looking for a place of affection.” And as you will discover, her life-work, the Théâtre du Soleil, is clearly nothing less than that. Started with her fellow students at L’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq […]
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The Future of Cinema
Since its inception in 1885 with the Lumiere Brothers’ public screening of La Sortie de l’Usine Lumière à Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory in Lyon), cinema has been a collective experience, the modern equivalent of gathering around the campfire for storytelling. It continues to shape our perceptions, our attitudes, and the larger culture by […]
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Disruptive Cinema
“Subversive” is defined as “seeking or intended to subvert an established system or institution; disruptive; inflammatory.” Films may be considered aesthetically or culturally subversive, or both. Subversive cinema has been with us since the silent era; early examples include Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation (though it wasn’t considered subversive at the time), Robert Wiene’s […]
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Other Possibilities
Writer-Director Darya Zhuk’s debut film Crystal Swan (2018) centers around Velya, a young woman seeking to escape the miserable conformity of life in Belarus in 1996. Velya is an aspiring DJ whose house music provides some much-needed escapism, but like many others her age she dreams of fleeing to America—or perhaps more accurately, a fantasy […]
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Genre-bending is Not for the Faint of Heart
Blending movie genres can be a tricky business, one often as not doomed to failure. Combining horror and comedy is especially fraught, since the two genres would seem to be mutually exclusive if not diametrically opposed in tone & subject matter. A few brave filmmakers have forged ahead regardless, including Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, […]
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Artist William Wegman: Of Canine Muses and Scenic Overlooks
In the early 1970s a young Los Angeles-based artist named William Wegman brought home the first of what would be many Weimaraners and named him Man Ray, after the Surrealist artist and filmmaker who was one of his formative influences. Wegman considered his dog a companion, but Man Ray aspired to be more. Wegman, an […]
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A Fascination with Trees
When Terry Allen left Lubbock, Texas to pursue his youthful ambitions it’s doubtful he could have foreseen his status nearly six decades later as a legendary painter, conceptual artist, composer, and musician. Terry’s work is unusually diverse but certain themes are common: the mysteries of love, surviving loss, and the consequences of violence are just […]