When Cary Long, owner of the sci-fi-themed Nova Express Cafe in
Hollywood, moved from Berkeley to Los Angeles 14 years ago, he
carried with him a passion for the Bay Area’s
literati-independent coffeehouse culture and planted it between a
barbershop and a pharmacy on Fairfax Avenue.

“Giselle” has got a brand new bag.
On Sunday, UCLA’s Theater Underground, an independent,
student-run organization that provides the means to stage student
productions, presents a modernized rendition of the 163-year-old
ballet “Giselle,” infusing the classical with
contemporary dance styles and music.

“The Good Soul of Szechwan”
The Electric Lodge Theatre

The German playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote his plays with the
intention of fomenting social consciousness rather than simply
entertaining his audience.

After “Divertimento No. 15,” a classical style
ballet piece set to Mozart, the Suzanne Farrell Ballet dancers
quite literally let their hair down. In Stravinsky’s
“Variations for Orchestra,” Bonnie Pickard, a soloist,
traded her immaculate bun for a loose ponytail; Ravel’s
“Tzigane” saw the dancers do the same; and in
Stravinsky’s “Apollo,” Lisa Reneau tossed her
loose hair in blonde head circles.

As a project designer on the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Craig
Webb is responsible for constructing physical models at various
scales and researching the most ideal building materials.

As a tour guide led a group of UCLA architecture graduate
students through the Walt Disney Concert Hall’s barren
backstage area, a sense of anticipation swirled through everyone.

UCLA’s Hammer Museum stands inconspicuously on the corner
of Wilshire and Westwood Boulevards. Students are unaware that the
once-little museum now ranks with such art powerhouses as the
Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art
in Chicago.

When asked about her art education, Lee Bontecou ““ one of
the few women artists to garner widespread recognition in the 1960s
with her uniquely experimental style ““ cited the two gems of
advice her usually reticent teacher passed on to her: Never sign
anything and never talk about your work.

Architecture’s iron frames and painting’s whimsical
brush strokes may not seem to mix, but for Kamran Khavarani, an
architect and painter, the two blend more easily than paint on his
palette.