American Masters Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance, premiering nationally Friday, December 28, 2012 at 9 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings), tells the story of the first quintessentially American dance company, the Joffrey Ballet. Founders Robert Joffrey (12/24/1930 – 3/25/1988) and Gerald Arpino (1/14/1923 – 10/29/2008) revolutionized American dance by combining modern with traditional ballet to create a new and daring art form. Narrated by Tony® and Emmy® Award-winner Mandy Patinkin (Homeland), the 90-minute documentary is the first to chronicle the Joffrey Ballet’s pioneering dance philosophy. Award-winning filmmaker Bob Hercules traces the company’s struggles and triumphs: from its humble beginnings in 1956, touring the United States in a borrowed station wagon, to becoming one of the world’s most exciting and prominent ballet companies.  Read the rest of this entry »

Docurama Films is pleased to announce that Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance, a feature-length documentary, directed by Bob Hercules (Bill T. Jones: A Good Man), will debut on DVD and standard digital platforms on June 12, 2012, following a festival premiere and nationwide theatrical release. The 2012 film chronicles the legendary Joffrey Ballet from its humble beginnings touring the country in a borrowed station wagon to becoming one of the world’s most exciting and prominent ballet companies.  Narrated by Tony® and Emmy® Award winner Mandy Patinkin, the documentary takes a look at this groundbreaking cultural treasure, known as the first truly American dance company.  Included on the single DVD is the 82-minute documentary film; a 12-page collectible booklet; full dress rehearsal of The Green Table ballet; “making of” featurette; deleted scenes (including one on the making of Robert Altman’s film The Company); French, Spanish and German subtitles.

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Hybrid Cinema is pleased to announce the San Francisco premiere of the feature length documentary Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance at the third annual San Francisco Dance Film Festival on Sunday, March 18, 2012 at 6:00pm.  The film, directed by Bob Hercules, chronicles the legendary Joffrey Ballet from its humble beginnings touring the country in a borrowed station wagon to becoming one of the world’s most exciting and prominent ballet companies.  The San Francisco premiere will feature a Q&A immediately following the screening moderated by the film’s director, Bob Hercules, with former Joffrey Ballet dancers as panelists.

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The Society for the Activation of Social Space Through Art and Sound (SASSAS) will transform Eagle Rock’s Welcome Inn into a six-hour tour through key moments in LA’s experimental music history withWelcome Inn Time Machine on Sunday, January 29, 2012.  Over a dozen concurrent micro concerts will transform individual motel rooms into venues for installations and live performances allowing key moments in Southern California sound and music history to be experienced simultaneously and sequentially in a single location. Welcome Inn Time Machineruns from 4:00pm to 10:00pm. The event is free.  The Welcome Inn is located at 1840 Colorado Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90041.

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Photo Credit: Randall Montgomery

Award-winning actress and playwright Diz White is set to release her spine-tingling collection of true stories, Haunted Cotswolds, through The History Press this Halloween season. Set in what many consider the most beautiful part of England, White, a Los Angeles-based British expat, recounts the numerous paranormal events that have occurred in the region while simultaneously documenting the Cotswolds’ eerie architecture and fascinating history. Pieced together from both historic and present-day sources, the 96-page paperback book is filled with tales of ghosts, ghouls and the undead from every corner of the Cotswolds, the second most popular tourist destination in the UK. Included are stories of tortured headless kings, stark-raving mad butchering inn keepers, buried alive country squires, burned at the stake nuns, and other undead who walk among us. The author will discuss and sign copies of the book at a Samuel French reception in Studio City on Thursday, October 21, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. (11963 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, CA 91604; 818-762-0535; www.samuelfrench.com).

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