The Hounds of Spring

An Update on the Forthcoming Shengjing Panorama

• Effulgence of the North and its sculptural terrain are removed & Shengjing Panorama is provisionally installed.
• A plan for the cyclical light show is drafted & technical structures for linking light and sound are researched.
• The first in a series of ambisonic field recordings are conducted around Los Angeles.
• LED strip lighting is currently being installed & wired in 360-degrees. 
• With your help we have successfully raised 43% of our $48,888 goal.

What Remains to be Funded

• To purchase equipment to sync light and ambisonic sound.
• To fund materials & artist honoraria needed to build a sculptural faux terrain with kinetic features.
• To assist in housing of the Panorama during renovation, as we will see a 30% increase in general operating expenses in 2018 & beyond. 
• To develop a new exhibition brochure, featuring writers from Shenyang & LA. 
• To draft & print a new multilingual general informational brochure.

Coming To The Velaslavasay Panorama

Ce qui embellit le désert, dit le petit prince, c'est qu'il cache un puits quelque part...
(Landscape formed by our very own Anna Tanner; relic located somewhere in the Union Theatre.)

Saturday, March 31, 2018
Open House Day
Noon 'til 6:00 P.M.
Suggested Donation $6 / $4 Students & Seniors

The Velaslavasay Panorama will be open to the public with a selection of plants for sale in the garden and a humble celebration of René Descartes in honor of his birthday. 

The Panorama Viewing Hall will not be open as it is still in the process of becoming Shengjing Panorama. However, the Nova Tuskhut, the Lobby exhibit on Nancy Columbia, the theatre and garden will be on view. This will be the only open house in March.

Sunday, April 1, 2018
The Banana Moonshine Special: An April Fool's Day Affair
Doors at 7 p.m. // Show at 8:30 p.m. // Garden Soiree at 10 p.m.
Tickets $12 General Admission / $10 V.P.E.S. Members

A special edition of the backyard variety show series, filmed live. Come gander at the Salon’s queer smattering of stand-up comedy, drag performance, live music and much, much more for the most ambitious Banna Moonshine Salon yet. 

Special treats galore are in store. STRONG looks are highly encouraged. 

Featuring:
Jaboukie Young-White (The Tonight Show)
Megan Koester (Corporate)
Brian Jordan Alvarez (Will & Grace)
D'Lo (Looking, Transparent)
Austyn Rich (PERSON)
Alexandria (Awful Records)
Bapari (Moon Casual)
& more TBA!

Friday, April 6, 2018 
A World Redrawn: Eisenstein and Brecht in Hollywood
Doors 7:30 P.M. / Show 8:00 P.M.
Tickets $15 General Admission / $13 V.P.E.S. Members

In 1930  Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein spent six months in Los Angeles under contract with Paramount. A decade later German playwright and theater director Bertolt Brecht, a refugee from Nazi Germany, lived there from 1941 to 1947. Both set out to make films in Hollywood on their own terms. Working in the world's most famous factory of dreams, they believed that artists must call into question the way we understand our world. In A World Redrawn a project that encompassed an exhibition, a book and three films Zoe Beloff explores their unrealized film scenarios Glass House and A Model Family in a Model Home and reimagines them for today.
 

Zoe Beloff returns to the Velaslavasay to discuss the project and screen the three films.

TWO MARXISTS IN HOLLYWOOD - 26 minutes HD video, sound (2015) Interviews with Eisenstein and Brecht in contemporary Los Angeles. (Filmed in part at the Velaslavasay Panorama)

GLASS HOUSE - 22 minutes HD video, sound (2014) A film based on Eisenstein’s scenario for a science fiction movie about a world of total visibility that also involves a ruthless robot.

A MODEL FAMILY IN A MODEL HOME - 22 minutes HD video sound (2015) This film is inspired by Brecht’s notes for a movie based on an article in Life Magazine, a farm family win a week's stay in a model home and everything goes wrong.

Copies of Zoe's book A World Redrawn: Eisenstein and Brecht in Hollywood (published by Christine Burgin) will be available for purchase. The book reproduces many important and little-known documents from the period, including a large selection of previously unpublished drawings by Eisenstein discovered by Beloff in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art in Moscow and facsimile reproductions of the writings of Eisenstein and Brecht as they contemplate the politics and culture of Hollywood.