Here are a few suggestions for those who love gadgets — and isn’t that everyone?
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San Francisco Ballet’s current "Nutcracker" uses 173 costumes, 42 pairs of pointe shoes, more than 59 pairs of tights and 18 wigs per show. It’s a contrast to 1944, when it made do with rhinestones from Goodwill and rationed fabric in what was the first production of the ballet in America.
Today, the show garners about 40 percent of the company’s ticket revenue each year, for good reason: "Nutcracker" is a crowd-pleasing romp, albeit with some room for improvement.
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Who would Michael Jackson have been without his jackets, shiny shoes, fedoras and gloves? His image was as iconic as his groundbreaking music and dancing, and key to his success as the King of Pop.After 25 years behind the scenes, Jackson’s costume designer Michael Bush is stepping into the limelight. He signs copies of his new book, “The King of Style: Dressing Michael Jackson,” at Book Passage on Tuesday in The City; some of Jackson’s costumes also will be on view.
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Here are a few stylish, sensual ideas for that special gal or guy.
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These exclusive, top-of-the-line gift ideas are for givers with healthy resources and recipients with first-class taste.
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The French royal court was never known for subtlety. Louis XIV had mile-high hair and dubbed himself the Sun King after his idol, Apollo, the sun god. In the late 17th century, he expanded the palace of Versailles, which today remains a symbol of lavish, unrestrained (and mostly gold) decorative extravagance.
Prepare to be blinded at “Royal Treasures from the Louvre: Louis XIV to Marie-Antoinette,” on view at the Legion of Honor through March 2013.
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No time is too soon to get ready for Halloween! Here’s a short, by no means complete, list for revelers — young and old — who enjoy the year’s spookiest, wildest holiday.
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It’s a bad pun to say that hula is hip, but in the hands of Patrick Makuakane, it couldn’t be truer.
Makuakane, director of the San Francisco-based hula group Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu, has organized flash mob hulas in the Castro and on Hawaiian Airlines flights. His dancers perform what he calls “hula mua” — Hawaiian dance accompanied by non-Hawaiian music.
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Lighting designer Alexander V. Nichols works with the best: His résumé boasts Metallica, Hugh Jackman, the San Francisco Ballet and other heavy-hitting dance names such as Bill T. Jones, Mark Morris and American Ballet Theatre.
“I have a special affinity for dance,” says Nichols, who is working with Margaret Jenkins Dance Company on the troupe’s 40th anniversary piece “Times Bones,” which previews this weekend at the Jewish Community Center.
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Russians just do some things best – like synchronizing swans.
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Bay Area balletomanes are about to go to church.
“Rudolf Nureyev: A Life in Dance,” on view through February at the de Young Museum, is an exquisite shrine dedicated to the late, groundbreaking dancer — and to ballet itself.
Satin, sequins and silk are in the spotlight in this sumptuous show, organized by the de Young and the Centre national du costume de scene in France.
At points, the show of 70 costumes has an appealing, eerie, backstage aura, created by exhibition designer Giuliano Spinelli.
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Bay Area poet Robert Hass admits his infatuation with The City started young, when Beat writers were causing a stir, and he was a teenager in Marin.
“When I was in high school in the ’50s you were supposed to be an Elvis Presley, a James Dean, a Marlon Brando or a Kingston Trio type in a button-down shirt headed for the fraternities at Stanford or Cal,” Hass recalls. “But there was this other group of people who were interested in the arts and stood in line at foreign movies and really looked sexy, like they were having a good time.”
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Comedian Shazia Mirza understands San Francisco.
“It’s not like the rest of America,” Mirza says. “I can do material there and people will understand it, and they’ll know what I’m talking about. In San Francisco they’re very intelligent, very funny and very gay.”
Mirza, appearing at the Punch Line on Wednesday, is British, Muslim and female – all traits that color her material.
She has done stand-up in a burqa, quipped about her pilot license and dares to do racy material in heavily censored locales.
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With a Paul Gaugin front and center, Francis Bacon to the right and Paul Cézanne to the left, the first room in the new de Young Museum show starts off with a bang.
“The William S. Paley Collection: A Taste for Modernism,” on view through Dec. 30, includes more than 60 big-name paintings, sculptures and drawings.
The works, against hunter green walls, give the exhibition an intimate feel, as if the visitor has been allowed inside an exclusive British gentlemen’s club.
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Filmmaker Luke Griswold-Tergis is packing up his boat.
The director, writer and co-producer of “Smokin’ Fish” — a humorous documentary about one man’s quest to learn how indigenous Alaskans prepare salmon _ is draining his water supply and shutting up his sailboat for the winter.
“It’s kind of like an RV, but on the water,” says Griswold-Tergis, who will appear in person Thursday at the Roxie Theater for the film’s San Francisco premiere. “Here in Alaska, you need a boat to get anywhere, but you can get places nobody else can go.”
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