Even if you watch significantly less TV than the average person, you still watch too much. Turn it off and head out to UCLA Live!  Their 2006-2007 Season has cherries and candies for even the obscurest tastes. You should definitely unwrap something other than TV dinners. Go to www.uclalive.org for full details

LA is world renown for its earthquakes. However, on the cultural scene, what normally happened here didn’t quite register in no one else’s radar. We were the ‘movie town’ with ‘tons of premieres and red carpets’.

Not no more.

In fact, not no more for the last half decade or so. There is, for anyone into cultural trends, a definite trend to notice: LA is taking itself culturally much more seriously and accordingly, the world is starting to notice –and to take LA more seriously- and to move here for reasons other than a movie career.

I was fortunate enough to attend the season premiere of LA’s flagship cultural program: the UCLA Live! 2006-2007 Season. There, you have some corroboration of my point above: LA is beginning to get, -again, culture wise- the cherry of the cherries:

Don’t believe me?

Consider:

Russian genius clown Slava Polunin finally brings his thrilling tragicomic spectacle: Slava’s Snowshow. Expect to be blown away: clowning in Russia is close to a religion and what you’ll see Slava do you won’t soon forget.

A fan of his poignant movies? Well, perhaps less known for his jazz exploits, Woody Allen and his New Orleans Jazz Band make it to Royce Hall. David Sefton, UCLA Live program director, said it best on stage: “we’re one of only like… three engagements he plays in the entire country so we’re most delighted to have him and his incredible band…”

If your blood boils a degree or two hotter than average, then be positive not to miss the vociferous footwork of Spanish Flamenco diva Sara Baras. Her fierce dance technique speaks in the decibels proper to thunder. The piercingly exact combination of percussion, hand clapping and Baras’ feet is as musical as an entire orchestra. Find out here why authentically old never gets old.

Is Theatre your thing? You have to personally thank Sefton because thanks to his very own obsession with world-class theatre, you and I get to see locally what was before basically unavailable. His International Theatre Festival –part of the UCLA Live! program- is a flagship of its own: for the first time in LA, an abridged version of the Ming Dynasty classic The Peony Pavilion –abridged and all, this version still takes three entire performances, The Dream Of Love, Romance And Resurrection & Reunion And Triumph.

Your cheap Dodger tickets cost much more than you’ll ever know. At least that’s part of the saga that Heather Woodbury tries to unravel in her Tale of 2 Cities and she rediscovers how the decision to move the then Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles back in 1957 devastated families there as well as those in LA relocated to build Dodger Stadium.

Winner of the 2005 Herald Angel Award at the Edinburgh Festival, Andrew Dawson’s Absence and Presence debuts in LA. An elegy to his father whose body went undiscovered for 10 days after he died, the work is both poignant and ‘unbearably moving’ according to the New York Times. The performance incorporates video, sculpture, mime and Dawson’s father letters.

In celebration of Samuel Beckett’s Centenary, UCLA Live’s Theatre Festival also features a roster of top European Theatre houses: much regarded Gate Theatre Dublin does the classic Waiting for Godot. Gare St. Lazare Players Ireland does a series of 5 dramatic recitals of prose and one late drama (all texts by Beckett with acclaimed actor Conor Lovett and Ally Ni Chiarain.)

You’d imagine that if Sefton & Co. were to bring us a DollHouse to Royce Hall, it definitely had to be at least weird. Well, rejoice at Royce because this DollHouse is the product of iconoclastic director Lee Breuer, a celebrated re-inventor of classics like King Lear and Oedipus at Colonus. Imagine: in this playhouse-sized-world, the men are portrayed by actors about 4 to 4 and a half feet tall while all the women are almost 6 feet tall. You have to see for yourself… All I have to say is: long live the politically incorrect entrepreneurs. 

The entire season cannot be previewed in this article & know for sure that I’m just teasing you with the many options listed above: Sankai Juku will leave you gasping for air, this is brutally beautiful butoh… nothing more and nothing less. Batsheva Dance Company does Three and Sylvie Guillem joins Akram Khan for Sacred Monsters, a mesmerizing examination of the opposing and harmonizing male and female energies. Stephen Petronio’s Company presents Bloom, a mix of visual art, fashion and music with Petronio’s highly charged choreography.

Diamanda Galás brings her Guilty, Guilty, Guilty Concert for Voice and Piano to LA. Again, tip your hats off to the UCLA Live talent scouts. Galas is the mistress of gnawing agony and her songs and register are equivalent to sandpaper to wound. Raw is just the beginning with her and The Wire said it best: “Galas operatic blues gnaw right at the soul, a wordless moan of grief and pain somewhere between the spine tingling ululatory howl of a Middle Eastern funeral and distracted humming from a cell at the asylum”

On world music you’ve got Gilberto Gil -yes, the grand daddy and di facto innovator behind Tropicalia- on a rare engagement, Lila Downs and Marisa Monte, covering Brazilian and Mexican favorites. On Roots there’s the legendary Merle Haggard with an opening act by Ramblin’ Jack Elliot. Then of course you’ve got to salivate when I say: Perla Batalla presents The Gospel of Leonard Cohen, a homage to the acclaimed and much recorded canadian songwriter. Participating musicians in this tribute include Kris Kristofferson, Michael Mc Donald, Madeleine Peyroux, Bill Frisell, Howed Tate and many more.

Spoken word gets louder with Zadie Smith, Garry Trudeau and David Sedaris not to mention an evening with the Puzzle Master himself, Will Shortz.

Like David at the presentation, I’ve gotten so excited about the opening acts on the calendar that I’m now out of space and time with still dozens of world class acts to announce… For that, you’ll have to forgive my enthusiasm and click on www.uclalive.org for full season details, prices and what not…

You know that without the UCLA program, LA would taste awfully vanilla, so do your part, plan ahead and reserve some season tickets or individual performances. The alternative is awful: pop corn and cheesy red carpets ad nauseum… and besides, you know movie stars really look much better on glossy magazines than they do in real life...