Sponsored message
Audience-funded nonprofit news
radio tower icon laist logo
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Subscribe
  • Listen Now Playing Listen

This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.

This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.

Arts & Entertainment

Classical Pick of the Week: Farmlab's "Amaze," a Jazz Opera

Truth matters. Community matters. Your support makes both possible. LAist is one of the few places where news remains independent and free from political and corporate influence. Stand up for truth and for LAist. Make your year-end tax-deductible gift now.

What happens when you take a jazz influenced visual artist and team him up with a group that transforms unoccupied storefronts and spaces into temporary art galleries and give them a large empty, ground-floor lobby of a former bank building in Beverly Hills? You get another amazing experience under the umbrella of Farmlab, which is a think tank, art production studio, and cultural performance venue doing multi-disciplinary investigations of land use issues that are related to sustainability, livability, and health. These are the people who brought Not A Cornfield to Los Angeles.

Phantom Galleries transforms unoccupied storefronts and spaces into temporary art galleries and has been working with George Herms and Farmlab since July on the Beverly Hills bank space to create the piece called "AMAZE":

This experimental labyrinth is a zone of play, flexibility, and collaboration located in the heart of a renowned commerce district where passers-by are offered constant opportunities to consume, but far fewer to build and make. Utilizing a palette of salvaged materials (steel rods, telephone wire, kimonos, etc.), and inspired by the assemblage work and recycling ethos of George Herms – himself a recent Farmlab artist-in-residence – Farmlab team members have since mid-July been working to transform the large, ground-floor lobby area of this former bank building.

Next Saturday's jazz opera workshop is "Act One, Scene One: A Sculptor's Studio," a salute to john Coltrane. A spiral staircase will be elevated, and a large spherical buoy played. Jazz musicians joining Herms are Theo Saunders (piano), Adar Lawrence (tenor sax), Henry "The Skipper" Franklin (bass), Ramon Banda (drums), David Dalston (trombone). Bill Gray will be making the staircase levitate.

August 25, 2007 @ 10 p.m.
269 N. Beverly Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210
(more info on the performance here)

Photo of Farmlab, but not this project, by momo the monster via Flickr

You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our connected community. We are free to tell the full truth, to hold power to account without fear or favor, and to follow facts wherever they lead. Our only loyalty is to our audiences and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen our community.

Right now, LAist has lost $1.7M in annual funding due to Congress clawing back money already approved. The support we receive before year-end will determine how fully our newsroom can continue informing, serving, and strengthening Southern California.

If this story helped you today, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.

Your tax-deductible donation keeps LAist independent and accessible to everyone.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief

Make your tax-deductible year-end gift today

A row of graphics payment types: Visa, MasterCard, Apple Pay and PayPal, and  below a lock with Secure Payment text to the right