L.A. WeeklyFrom a peak into the dawn of Stanley Kubrick’s career to L.A.’s own Comic Con, here are the 13 best things to do in Los Angeles this week.
fri 10/11
CULTURE
The Other Comic Con
While L.A. Comic Con is younger and smaller than its massive predecessor San Diego Comic-Con, the three-day gathering has expanded in recent years after renaming itself following earlier incarnations, when it was known as Comikaze Expo and then Stan Lee’s L.A. Comic Con. This year’s guests encompass the worlds of Hollywood (Elijah Wood, Ron Perlman, Felicia Day, Barry Bostwick and much of the cast of The Office) as well as comic books (with legendary artists Neal Adams, Jim Starlin and John Romita Jr.). Rapper DMC, comedian Gabriel Iglesias, Bela Lugosi Jr., and a legion of cosplayers, including Maid of Might and disabled costume-maker/model Amber Kohaku Chan, add to the merry distractions. L.A. Convention Center, 1201 S. Figueroa St., downtown; Fri., Oct. 11, 1-11 p.m.; Sat., Oct. 12, 9:30 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sun., Oct. 13, 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m.; $30-$229. (213) 741-1151, comicconla.com. —Falling James
RANDOM INTERNATIONAL, You Fade to Light
ART
Future Creature Comforts
The worlds of art, design, architecture and celebrity aficionados collide at UTA Artist Space with the opening of the group exhibition Dark Fantasy, curated from the influential avant-garde program of the international Carpenters Workshop Gallery. Expect marquee names like Virgil Abloh, Nacho Carbonell, Atelier Van Lieshout, Studio Drift (of LACMA Rain Room fame), and the one and only Rick Owens to offer up some 50 works employing very unexpected forms and materials — such as Owen’s chair made of 5 million year-old wood. The designers’ unique aesthetic and material hybrid of past and future, analog and digital, also yields more experiential works such as light-activated sculpture and more ethereal immersions. UTA Artist Space, 403 Foothill Road, Beverly Hills; opening reception: Fri., Oct. 11, 6-8 p.m.; Tue-Sat, 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Oct. 11-Nov. 16; free. utaartistspace.com. —Shana Nys Dambrot
(Courtesy of LACDC)
DANCE
Christening
When she was an undergraduate student at USC, Kate Hutter wrote a business plan for L.A. Contemporary Dance Company. After graduation, she not only made LACDC a reality, but established it as a major player on the LA dance scene. Part of that original business plan included turning the company over to new blood after 10 years. She did that too and her selected successor, Genevieve Carson, has carried on, expanding the company’s profile as a repertory company incubating new dance, especially from LA-based choreographers.While Hutter has been low profile since her “retirement” from LACDC, she has not been idle, recently opening a new dance performance space, The Stomping Ground. With L.A. dance troupes always in search of rehearsal/performance space at the same time facing many long-time venues/studios falling to redevelopment and soaring rent increases, the new space is an occasion for celebration. Aptly, LACDC stomps the new ground with terra. The Stomping Ground, 5453 Alhambra Ave., El Sereno; Thu.-Sat., Oct. 10-12, 8 p.m.; $25, $15 students & seniors. artful.ly/store/events/18803. Sun., Oct. 13, performance and party $150, https://www.artful.ly/
Culver City Art Walk
(Juhn Kwon)
sat 10/12
ART/CULTURE
Stroll Through Culver City
“Recharge” is the theme of this year’s Culver City Art Walk & Roll Festival, taking place deep in the beating Heart of Screenland — and, as renewal and discovery are both cornerstones of art, you’ll be sure to reach deep into the moment and feel the energy of one of the most vital urban centers on the West Coast. You’ll get everything from art to music to food to wine to electric conveyances to scores of businesses both big and small opening themselves to you as you take a whole day to indulge in the shock therapy that is life experience. Downtown Culver City (Washington Boulevard at Helms Avenue); Sat., Oct. 12, 11 a.m.; free. (310) 287-3850, culvercityartwalk.com. —David Cotner
CULTURE
A Decade of the Dead
Celebrating a decade of dynamic Day of the Dead gatherings in L.A. Antonio Pelayo’s El Velorio touts the largest Dia de Los Muertos themed art show ever assembled (he had help from the Weekly’s own arts editor Shana Nys Dambrot, so expect the city’s top artists interpreting Muerto imagery in both traditional and irreverent ways). But the visual elements will go beyond the gallery offerings. A classic car show, live art, film screenings (a Carlos Almaraz documentary) and a fashion show will be part of the festivities as well as a chance to become living art yourself via face fainting booths doing embellished skull makeup for guests. Pelayo also has a knack for crowd-pleasing music bookings to complement his events, and this year the lineup is no exception, with headliner Los Master Plus, and Subsuelo, Mariachi Los Reyes, Folklor Pasion Mexicana, Aztec dancers, DJ Chris Rox, No Where Fast band, Myk Mansun, and Player WON on the bill. There will be prizes for the best dressed Muerto couple, and authentic Mexican food and drinks too. L.A. Weekly is one of several media partners on the event. Plaza de la Raza, 3540 N Mission Road, Lincoln Heights; $25-$75. antoniopelayoprod.com/el-
sun 10/13
FOOD/BOOKS
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat
Samin Nosrat is a chef, columnist for The New York Times Magazine and author of 2017’s famed Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, one of the most popular food books of the last decade. But fans might know Nosrat better as star of her Netflix’s 2018 travel-cooking series of the same name where she visits different countries and explores cooking’s four basic elements, whether it’s making tortillas in Mexico, focaccia in Italy or tahdig rice with her Persian mom in her hometown of Berkeley. For $250, you can meet Nosrat at a benefit lunch at Open Face Food Shop restaurant in West Adams, hosted by the Center for the Art of Performance UCLA. If that’s too much dough for you, CAP UCLA also hosts Samin Nosrat in Conversation with Lindy West, author of another famed book, 2016’s Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman, which inspired the hit Hulu series. Maybe now you can find out if Nosrat’s show will have a second season. Royce Hall, UCLA; Sun., Oct. 13, 7 p.m.; $59-$79. (310) 825-2101, cap.ucla.edu. —Siran Babayan
CULTURE
Going Underground
Much like how an aging (and even not-so-aging) actor rearranges his bones to maintain the illusion of youth, Hollywood’s only cemetery underwent a big makeover when it changed owners in 1998, including a name upgrade from Hollywood Memorial Park to the presumably dreamier and more glamorous Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Ever since, the old graveyard has been a fairly lively place with concerts and film screenings, but the Hollywood Goes Underground walking tour digs deeper into the place’s distant past. Presented by Art Deco Society of L.A., the tour delves into the lives and deaths of Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks and Marion Davies and such historical figures as Griffith J. Griffith, who shot his wife but still got a park named after him, and Harvey Wilcox, whose wife, Daeida, dubbed the new neighborhood Hollywood but only got Wilcox Avenue named for him. The tour departs from the parking lot behind the Cathedral Mausoleum at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, 6000 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood; Sun., Oct. 13, 9 a.m.; $20. (323) 469-1181, adsla.org/info/node/602. —Falling James
(Mercie Ghimire/Courtesy of the Skirball Cultural Center)
CULTURE/FOOD&DRINK
Harvest Festival
Beginning five days after Yom Kippur, Sukkot is a weeklong Jewish holiday (October 13-20) where Jews all over the world mark the fall harvest by building booths or huts (sukkot in Hebrew), which symbolize the temporary shelters the Israelites lived in as they wandered the desert for 40 years after escaping slavery from Egypt. You can learn more about its biblical origins and traditions at The Skirball Harvest Festival: A Sukkot Celebration, which features live DJ music by Daddy Differently and klezmer-fusion band Mostly Kosher, Jewish and Israeli folk dancing by Bruce Bierman and Gilberto Melendez, spoken word performed inside the museum’s own sukkah and a tour of the permanent exhibit, “Visions and Values.” And because it’s a harvest holiday, it’s all about the food, so you can taste olive oil, create tea blends, and make vinegar, salves and even natural cleaning products out of herbs and fall foods in workshops and other activities. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Brentwood; Sun., Oct. 13, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; $12, $9 seniors & students, $7 children, under 2 free. (310) 440-4500, skirball.org. —Siran Babayan
mon 10/14
FASHION/CULTURE
Ethical Fashion
Vegan fashion might be a trend, but the mindset behind it is anything but fad-ish. It is considered by those who are part of it to be an ethical movement and a way to express one’s self while making the world a better place. This season’s Vegan Fashion Week theme, “Fashion is Activism,” reinforces the idea, exploring the issues concerning ecology and climate change and how science, technology and legal practices can affect them. Taking place in the L.A. Fashion District, the week is centered around a “Vegan World” trade show featuring runway presentations, showroom visits, a vegan lounge, a vegan clothing swap and a “Future of Fashion” conference with designers, scientists, and policymakers discussing the industry and emerging alternatives. (There’s also an awards show, fundraiser and kick-off bash at the Theater at the Ace Hotel on Thursday, October 10). California Market Center, 110 East 9th St., downtown; Thu.-Tue., Oct. 10-15; $20-$120. veganfashionweek.org. —Lina Lecaro
tue 10/15
ART
Master Cartoonists
Ever wonder how cartoonists get all those wacky ideas and zany inspirations? Well, don’t ask Lynda Barry and Chris Ware — Lynda has been too busy getting a MacArthur “Genius” Grant, and Chris just had his graphic novel Rusty Brown ($35, Pantheon) published after 16 years’ worth of toil and agony. They’re getting together tonight to basically just look at each other and shake their heads while laughing sheepishly at the sheer weirdness of life as it is for them right now, as well as talk about what’s next on their horizon for these two modest masters of American graphic blandishment. The Aratani Theater, Japanese American Cultural & Community Center, 244 San Pedro St., downtown; Tue., Oct. 15, 8 p.m.; $10-42. (213) 628-2725, skylightbooks.com/event/
Oxana Skorik in La Bayadère (Natasha Razina)
wed 10/16
DANCE
Jewels
The idea of love transcending the finite limitations of life has rarely been expressed more beautifully than in French choreographer Marius Petipa’s ballet La Bayadère, set to music by Austrian composer Ludwig Minkus. In “The Kingdom of the Shades” dream sequence, an Indian soldier named Solor is reunited with his true love, the dancer Nikiya, and surrounded by a fanlike, patterned bloom of luminous dancing spirits. In the right hands, this love potion of motion can be sublime, especially when served by Mariinsky Ballet and Orchestra, the Russian company that first presented Petipa’s ballet. After summoning the spirits in Orange County, the dancers and musicians travel north a week later to the Music Center to unlock and reshape George Balanchine’s artful and relatively modernist Jewels. Segerstrom Hall, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa; Wed.-Fri., Oct. 16-18, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., Oct. 19, 1 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.; Sun., Oct. 20, 1 p.m.; $39-$199. (714) 556-2787, scfta.org. —Falling James
thu 10/17
FOOD&DRINK
It’s National Pasta Day!
If you’re smart, cheap, or even vaguely enterprising, every day is National Pasta Day. There are over 600 types of pasta, from the humble spaghetti to su filindeu, the world’s rarest pasta. You can celebrate just some of those hundreds of varieties at Terzo, a new Mediterranean treasure just opened in August nestled in the space where Settebello was for about five years. The simplest dishes can also be the most nourishing — alternately, sometimes the simplest things are the hardest to do correctly — and yet when it all comes together, the simple things in life are absolutely worth celebrating. Terzo°MDR, 13455 Maxella Ave., Ste. #250, Marina del Rey; Thu., Oct. 17, 5 p.m.; prices vary. (310) 306-8204, nationalpastaday.com —David Cotner
PHOTOGRAPHY
Different Lens
While still in high school in the Bronx, Stanley Kubrick sold his first photograph to picture magazine Look, eventually becoming a staff photographer. Between 1945-50, Kubrick documented not only New York City dwellers, including subway riders, shoe-shine boys, debutantes, boxers, musicians and celebrities, but people and places all over the world. You can see the early genius that launched his iconic movie career at the Skirball’s latest exhibit, “Through a Different Lens: Stanley Kubrick Photographs.” On loan from the Museum of the City of New York, which houses 12,000 of Kubrick’s negatives, more than 130 images are displayed alongside Look issues and organized according to four themes: “Looking,” “Mastering the System,” “Media” and “Visual Style.” The collection also features screenings of the director’s first documentary, Day of the Fight (1951), and an excerpt from his second feature film, Killer’s Kiss (1955), both of which were influenced by his photography. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Brentwood; Tue.-Fri., noon-5 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Oct. 17-March 8; $12, $9 seniors & students, $7 children, under 2 free. (310) 440-4500, skirball.org. —Siran Babayan
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