"By continuously reproducing the forms of things that terrify me, I am able to suppress the fear...and lie down among them. That turns the frightening thing into something funny, something amusing."—Yayoi Kusama
Share your answer on social media for the chance to win a pair of tickets to Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors (don't forget to hashtag your post with #infiniteLA). Submit your response by 11:59 p.m. on December 15, and we'll announce the winner on December 18.
Benjamin Millepied is a Los Angeles-based French dancer, choreographer and filmmaker, who moves and searches with his body in the search for new paths. With dance rehearsals that can last two months, the repetition of movement so completely penetrates the body that it becomes automatic onstage.
Millepied was a principal with the New York City Ballet, where he danced from 1995 to 2011. In 2010, Mr. Millepied choreographed and starred in the award-winning film, Black Swan. Two years later, he founded the LA Dance Project, a platform for the development, creation, support and presentation of world-class dance in Los Angeles. Comprised of an internationally acclaimed dance company, a brand new performance space in Los Angeles’ burgeoning Arts District, and a program of media initiatives, LADP promotes dance not only as an artistic practice but as a way of being in the world. LADP seeks to foster dance-centered artistic collaborations across all disciplines, cultures and communities in Los Angeles and around the globe. Since its founding, LA Dance Project’s company has toured and given master classes at international venues and festivals including the Holland Festival, the Edinburgh International Festival, La Maison de la Danse, the Saitama Arts Center, Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Shanghai and Bejing Opera House and Theatre du Chatelet. In the US, the company has performed at venues including Jacob’s Pillow, Brooklyn Academy of Music and New York City Center. In its home city of Los Angeles the company has performed at The Music Center’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, MOCA, Union Station, The Theatre at Ace Hotel, and The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Since its founding, LA Dance Project’s company has toured and given master classes at international venues and festivals including the Holland Festival, the Edinburgh International Festival, La Maison de la Danse, the Saitama Arts Center, Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Shanghai and Bejing Opera House and Theatre du Chatelet. In the US, the company has performed at venues including Jacob’s Pillow, Brooklyn Academy of Music and New York City Center. In its home city of Los Angeles the company has performed at The Music Center’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, MOCA, Union Station, The Theatre at Ace Hotel, and The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Video footage of dancer courtesy LA Dance Workout.
Last week's winner was Tony Shu (@mastermindsays), who answered our question, "What are your hopes for future generations": I hope that those who follow in our footsteps will be filled with such a sense of wonder that they can find happiness even in their everyday lives, that they remember to pause and to treasure those beautiful moments that can all too often be deceptively disguised as ordinary life... I hope that when they look around them, they will see more than the screens on their phones and more than photoshop and filters, that instead they would see sky and trees, oceans and sunsets, that they would see people and faces, and the laughter and the tears hidden in their eyes… I hope they will be brave enough to search for beauty, especially when it is hardest to find, and wise enough to understand when it is more important to be kind than it is to be right... I hope that they will grasp every day just how amazing it is that they are here in this magnificent world… to live and to breathe and to move… And I hope that one day, those who journey behind them will find themselves walking in the footsteps of giants and be inspired to stand as tall as they did... I hope..."