#colburn school

[migueldelaguila]

#LACO #LosAngelesChamberOrchestra recent performance of #MigueldelAguila’s #SEDUCCION at #CoburnSchool #Theater Thanks #BenSmolen #flute #ChrisStoutenborough #clarinet AlinMelik #pianofor the amazing performance! - https://youtu.be/mtPxCOrxMtI

[wineslacker]

Harpist Ruriko Terada, 2019

Photo: Eric Johnson

[globalfilmlocations]

Velvet Buzzsaw (2019) Film Locations

Velvet Buzzsaw (2019) Film Locations

Locations:

Colburn School, South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, USA (Lama)

Google Maps Co-ordinates: 34.053924, -118.249716

Colburn Cafe, South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Google Maps Co-ordinates: 34.053924, -118.249716

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[marichulambino]

The Colburn School of Performing Arts, photo by Myra Lambino The Colburn School of Performing Arts, i-Phone-shot by Myra Lambino

[pomegranatespectacle-blog]

Workin' Wednesdays: Discrimination Dances Downtown

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Myshell Curry [email protected]

Discrimination Dances Downtown

Award winning tap teacher and heir to the legacy of Alfred Desio driven from the Colburn School by racial discrimination

It's business as usual for the predominantly caucasian dance department of the Colburn School as the last African-American dance teacher was driven out in May after a coordinated campaign of brow beating and cronyism.

When internationally lauded tap pioneer Alfred Desio fell ill six years ago, he personally asked for Myshell Curry to cover his classes at the Colburn School.  He did so because Curry's twenty seven years of tap dancing had led her to performing at the White House, The Ford Amphitheater and The Kennedy Center. Her instruction credits include teaching at Pomona College while she attended Chapman University, The Dance Center, Dynamic Dance Factory, and Lula Washington Dance Theatre for nearly fifteen years.  Many considered her a direct inheritor of his legacy. Desio passed away shortly thereafter and the school honored the wishes of a man whose reputation they traded on by keeping Curry on as part time faculty. Since then it's been a constant barrage of insults and unfair treatment.  Administrators allowed Curry's curriculum to be attacked by colleague, Denise Scheerer, in several meetings. The school even went so far as to have the colleague sit in on Curry's class and critique her. The number of classes Curry taught dwindled down to two, while Scheerer's increased to ten.  As if that weren't enough, Curry got word from an unrelated party that Scheerer was speaking ill of the quality of Colburn's dance program in general and of Curry's instructional abilities in specific at Loyola Marymount.  This disturbing rumor turned out to be true and Scheerer admitted as much to both  Curry and her superiors. Curry wrote an email expressing her displeasure with Scheerer's behavior, and she received a one line apology email.  She copied her boss on the response, but never heard anything back.  Confident in her position at the Colburn School, when passing Curry in the hallways, Scheerer would say things like, "You're black, so you're lucky to be here. You can blow the whistle as many times as you want. It won't affect me." Despite struggling under a number of idiosyncratic restrictions and dictates aimed only at her, such as being the school's only teacher who is not allowed to use recorded music in Colburn recitals,  Curry passed her 2009 faculty evaluation with flying colors.  Suspiciously, the school also invited Scheerer's less-experienced daughter, Angel Pennington, to teach on staff at the same level as Curry.  No one in administration sees this as unusual nor as a conflict of interest. Her boss did, however, see it as a problem when Curry's daughter performed in the front line of the dance institute's spring recital just weeks after applauding her performance for the dance intstitute's donors doing the exact same piece.  They also expressed concerns about Curry missing less than five minutes of an impromptu tech rehearsal that day.  Being called in for a disciplinary meeting regarding this was the last dance for Curry.  "I just couldn't take it anymore.  Here I hadn't heard anything back from my boss or human resources regarding the statements Denise made about me last year, but they were calling me in for a meeting about being five minutes late for a tech rehearsal that I was specifically told would not happen." With Curry's ouster, Colburn's tap program is now 100% free of African-Americans and left with a severe deficit in credibility as well as a critical public relations crisis.  To treat Curry -- who has been lauded by community organizations and the public alike many times during her sixteen year career as a dance educator -- this way gives some critics of the school ammunition, implying that the increasingly more isolated program is more interested in nepotism than artistic merit.  Where once community children were a common site, the cloistered dormitories are now jam-packed with smartphone-wielding scions of privilege. "I think it's sad really," said Curry, "because I loved the Colburn School so much.  I practically grew up there -- spending four to six hours a day there most summers, all the way back when they were on Figueroa.  What's left to do when home becomes a den of strangers?" ###

[hardtospeakmyheart]

ugh so i got accepted to colburn songfest in la for this summer (which is a pretty big deal and i am pretty fucking over the moon about it) but idk if it's really as good of a program as i think it is, and i don't want to spend $3000 on it if is not going to be worth it idk

does anyone have any thoughts about this program?