Arts: A wild procession, a female 'Tempest' and music's new sounds of protest

Rafa Esparza's engaging parade, the new protest music and how the Old Globe recast "The Tempest" with a woman as Prospero. --------------------------------------------------------------- [Arts & Culture] Arts & Culture [Send to friend]( | [Open in browser]( Presented by* It has been a week! With flamboyant parades, a female Prospero, a timely newspaper opera and a special report on the new generation of protest musicians. I’m Carolina A. Miranda, staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, with your weekly dose of what’s happening culture-wise: A RAUCOUS PARADE In what seems to be a month of terrible headlines, artist Rafa Esparza provided a moment of incredible joy as he led a surreal procession through Santee Alley in L.A.’s fashion district. There were blue demons, red devils and Esparza himself — decked out in a garland of barking mechanical puppies — all in connection with his solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles. “So many people who are thinking about fashion [and] who are queer have a specific relationship to the callejones [arcades],” Esparza told me of his connection to Santee Alley. [Los Angeles Times]( Bashir Naim and Shamu Azizam channel their inner demons for Rafa Esparza's "a la calle." (Carolina A. Miranda / Los Angeles Times) Advertisement by Pismo Beach* [Pismo Beach]( is located along the Central Coast of California halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. This classic California beach town is famous for its miles of beautiful white sand beaches, outstanding accommodations and rich wine region only minutes away. From the historical Hearst Castle less than an hour’s drive or the rich wine regions of Edna Valley, Paso Robles and to the south the Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez wine regions. It’s all here waiting for you — a gentle climate where sand, sun, sea and sky converge to create the ideal getaway. California’s golden past is alive and well in Pismo Beach. End of advertisement. NEA HONORS AN ALTARISTA Another (unrelated) Esparza — Ofelia Esparza of East Los Angeles — is renowned for crafting Day of the Dead altars. This week the National Endowment for the Arts bestowed its NEA Heritage Fellowship on the artist, a $25,000 award that is the nation’s highest honor in folk and traditional arts. Of altar-making, she tells The Times’ Jessica Gelt. “It bridges generations, and today it’s bridging cultures and even countries.” [Los Angeles Times]( Chicana altarista Ofelia Esparza is shown in front of one of her altars. (Mark Markley / Craft in America) THE NEW PROTEST MUSIC The Times arts and entertainment team has a new collection of stories out that looks at [music and the art of protest](. As part of the package, Times classical music critic Mark Swed notes that “Hamilton” wasn’t the first production to bring political topics to the proscenium. He reports on the 1926 debut of Charles Wakefield Cadman’s opera “Shanewis” at the Hollywood Bowl about a Creek/Cherokee princess who grows disenchanted with urban life and returns to the values of her society. And he charts the many other politically tinged productions that have followed, including George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” and John Adams’ “Nixon in China.” “America is a country that makes, with its great figures, myths,” he writes. “And one way or another, we have come to depend on, and find a way, for our music theater, with its traditions and inventiveness, as a special place to unpack those myths.” [Los Angeles Times]( Chief Oskenonton, second from left, and Princess Tsianina, second from right, greet composer Charles Wakefield Cadman, right, as they arrive in L.A. to star in "Shanewis." (Los Angeles Times) Plus: — Times reporter August Brown reports on how saxophonist Kamasi Washington is infusing jazz with “forceful assertions of black identity.” [Los Angeles Times]( — Randall Roberts looks at how a range of California musicians — including Kendrick Lamar and Lucinda Williams — wrestle with politics. [Los Angeles Times]( — Times pop music critic Mikael Wood analyzes how pop music — by the likes of Janelle Monáe, Beyoncé, Luis Fonsi and Childish Gambino — is using “slick, commercially minded” aesthetics to embrace progressive causes. [Los Angeles Times]( — More in the series: Randy Lewis on Jason Isbell bringing his introspective “White Man’s World” to country music, August Brown on the rapper JPEGMAFIA’s rhythmic rants against the conservative right and “fake-woke” left, Todd Martens on how Stella Donnelly mixes the personal and political with humor, and Lewis again on how the travels of Hurray for the Riff Raff’s Alynda Segarra shaped her world view. [Los Angeles Times]( Janelle Monáe, shown at the BET Awards, has written some of the most effective protest songs of 2018. (Richard Shotwell / Invision / Associated Press) ADVERTISEMENT A NEWSPAPER OPERA Pacific Opera Project is producing a rare version of “La Gazzetta,” Rossini’s 19th century comedic romp about a father who places marriage ads for his daughter in various newspapers. An opera about a newspaper couldn’t come at a more poignant time, notes Mark Swed — just as “The Times enters a new era with a new owner, new digs and new aspirations,” and, sadly, the killing of five staffers at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md. [Los Angeles Times]( Related: Times contributor Catherine Womack reports on how this little-known opera is a close cousin to key Rossini works “The Barber of Seville” and “La Cenerentola.” [Los Angeles Times]( An opening scene from "La Gazzetta" by the Pacific Opera Project. (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times) LEADING THE CHILDREN Anne Tomlinson, artistic director of the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus, is stepping down after 22 years. During her time there, she has steered the chorus from an outfit of 100 participants to today’s world-renowned organization, which has 450 students in six ensembles. “I have been able to block out that ‘last time’ voice,” she tells Jessica Gelt of bringing her career there to a close. “Let’s sing and present a concert to the best of our abilities, and after that, I might shed a tear or two.” [Los Angeles Times]( Anne Tomlinson is stepping down as the artistic director of the Los Angeles Children's Chorus. (Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times) MUSICAL NOTES Does all this inspire you to listen to music? Matt Cooper has published his weekend picks, including Liza Minelli and Michael Feinstein at Segerstrom Hall. [Los Angeles Times]( Plus, Cooper has a look at the week ahead in SoCal classical music. [Los Angeles Times]( And Richard S. Ginell looks at the staging of two works by composer Gordon Getty by Los Angeles Opera Off-Grand: “Usher House” and “The Canterville Ghost.” [Los Angeles Times]( PRODIGAL DAUGHTER & A FEMALE PROSPERO Times theater critic Charles McNulty took in the world premiere of Amanda Peet’s new play “Our Very Own Carlin McCullough” at the Geffen Playhouse. The play tells the story of a tennis prodigy who’s career and life is being steered by her single mom and her male coach. “Peet’s impulse to resist overheating the drama is laudable, but the writing seems sluggish at times,” notes McNulty. The play, however, is buoyed “by the scrupulous acting of Mamie Gummer and Joe Tippett” — who play mom and coach respectively. [Los Angeles Times]( Mamie Gummer, from left, Caroline Heffernan and Joe Tippett star in Amanda Peet's "Our Very Own Carin McCullough." (Chris Whitaker) McNulty trotted down to San Diego to catch the Old Globe’s production of William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” — featuring Kate Burton in the role of Prospero (a.k.a. “Prospera”). To the role, a bitter one, she brings compassion, he writes: “Burton’s Prospera is commanding on the outside, soft on the inside. She’s stern with Miranda, who still has so much to learn about life, but her tyrannical parenting is unmistakably born out of anxious love.” [Los Angeles Times]( And Reprise 2.0, the reboot of the Reprise Theatre Company, is back with a performance of “Sweet Charity” at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse, on view through Sunday. While the Neil Simon book is “dated,” McNulty reports that he nonetheless found himself tapping toes during numbers such as “Big Spender.” [Los Angeles Times]( Plus, Matt Cooper has a look at the week ahead in SoCal theater. [Los Angeles Times]( IN THE GALLERIES Times contributing reviewer Sharon Mizota has been hitting the white boxes. This includes visits to sculptor Daniel Silva’s “inexplicably compelling” installation at [Baert Gallery]( and painter Jonathan Lyndon Chase’s show at [Kohn Gallery]( full of exuberant depictions of black male sexuality that suggest “an openness of an identity in which stark contradictions are not so much reconciled as simply allowed to exist.” Also on the docket: a collaborative show at [Kopeikin Gallery]( in which painter Kirsten Tradowsky painted works from gallerist Paul Kopeikin’s collection of vernacular photography. “They are erasures,” writes Mizota, “replacing the specificity of photography with broad impressions.” "Girl Scout Campers" by Kirsten Tradowsky, 2018. (Kirsten Tradowsky) For more arts listings, check out my weekly Datebook, which includes some trés chic fashion photography at the Getty Museum and the cinematic work of artist Jack Goldstein. [Los Angeles Times]( CAMP ARCHITECTURE Reporter Angela Kocherga got inside a tent city operated by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department in Tornillo, Texas, that serves as housing for teenage migrants. Tents were air conditioned and contained bunk beds, a dining hall and a screening area for movies. [Albuquerque Journal]( Young migrants line up at the tent encampment in Tornillo, Texas, where U.S. mayors protested this month. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images) ADVERTISEMENT IN OTHER NEWS… — Sabina Ott, a beloved Chicago curator, who grew up in Los Angeles and studied in San Francisco, has died at the age of 62. [Chicago Tribune]( — Plus: David Goldblatt, a South African photographer who captured the country’s racial divide, has died at 87. [The Guardian]( — The Baltimore Museum of Art sold works by white male artists to fund acquisitions by artists of color. [Artnet]( — The state of California has granted $9.7 million to the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art, Culture and Industry, scheduled to open in Riverside in 2020. [Los Angeles Times]( — On Melrose, an angel wing mural for verified influencers that makes fun of verified influencers. [Hyperallergic]( — Beast Jesus: the Sequel — Another work of restoration goes seriously awry at a historic Spanish church. [The Guardian]( — Elon Musk gets into copyright kerfuffle with Colorado potter Tom Edwards. [Washington Post]( — Artist Catherine Opie and filmmaker Guillermo del Toro will be the honorees at LACMA’s 2018 Art + Film Gala. [Los Angeles Times]( Artist Catherine Opie and filmmaker Guillermo del Toro will be the honorees at LACMA’s 2018 Art + Film Gala. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times; Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times) — Critic John Terauds is totally over Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. [The Toronto Star]( — Glenda Jackson will return to Broadway in a gender-blind production of “King Lear.” [Hollywood Reporter]( — The Los Angeles Master Chorale this week announced a $1-million gift from outgoing board chair David Gindler. Taking over as chair is Philip A. Swan. [Los Angeles Times]( — Alexandra Lange reports on the new Gateway Arch National Park, which helps integrate Eero Saarinen’s famous arch with the city of St. Louis around it. [Curbed]( — “They go together as well as … the City Council and ethics reform.” Architecture critic Blair Kamin is not digging the expansion plans for Chicago’s Union Station. [Chicago Tribune]( — Medellin, Colombia’s “post-narco urbanism.” [99% Invisible]( — For the dance types: a “bucking” explainer. [The Guardian]( AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST… Our heartfelt condolences go to [our colleagues]( at the Capital Gazette. In honor of the dead, the Gazette has published a largely blank page that features only a list of the dead. [@capgaznews]( ​Follow me on Twitter [@cmonstah](. *This advertiser has no control over editorial decisions or content. [Email](mailto:?subject=Arts: A wild procession, a female 'Tempest' and music's new sounds of protest&body=[Twitter]( [Sign up for Newsletters]( | [Privacy Policy]( | [Unsubscribe]( | Copyright © 2018 Los Angeles Times | 202 West First Street, Los Angeles, CA, 90012. | 1-800-LA-TIMES