UCLA half-dead
This time last year I was bemoaning what had been done to the UCLA Live program, beginning with the termination of the theatre programming and culminating in a parting of the ways with its visionary director, David Sefton. Since then, I’ve seen scattered events and haven’t been impressed.
Today I got the new UCLA Live catalog in the mail.
It’s a disheartening document.
There’s not one must-see event.
David Sedaris. Again.
A silent film. Again.
The same mixture of “roots” music and world music, jazz, and classical. Again.
Some dance. Again.
No theatre.
The best series in LA has become the blandest series in LA. Yes, I’d like to see They Must Be Giants. Yes, I’d like to see Joan Didion. But that doesn’t make a series. Those are isolated events — and they’re interesting, not provocative. Not thrilling.
Here’s what we used to get:
The Berliner Ensemble’s “Arturo Ui.”
David Thomas, Pere Ubu and “Disastodrome.”
Socìetas Raffaello Sanzi’s “Genesi: From the Museum of Sleep.”
Merce Cunningham and UCLA Dance doing some strange collaboration with the ghost of John Cage.
“Shockheaded Peter.”
“The Black Watch.” Which I didn’t even like — but I respected it.
Now we’ve got as little as they can afford, or conceive. Or both.
Really really sad.
UCLA Live’s new executive and artistic director, Kristy Edmunds, starts in the fall, and, as this recent dance review in the LA Times mentions, it’s not a moment too soon. Audiences have abandoned the series, and that includes me.