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MONDAY, APRIL 6, 2020::L ATIMES.COM/CALENDAR

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Choreographer and image di-

rector JaQuel Knight was in the middle of preparing for the

Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival — creating dances

for three acts and hiring more than 75 dancers and 10 to 15 as-

sistants — when he learned the event was postponed.

His work with Pharrell on the Something in the Water

music festival was canceled and his TV deal and job on an art-

ist’s visual album fell through as productions, tours and

events shut down to contain the coronavirus outbreak.

Knight, 30, took a financial hit, but as Beyoncé’s head

choreographer — he created the iconic moves in “Single

Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” and co-choreographed Beychella

— Knight knew he could weather the storm.

The dancers he hired, the ones who lived paycheck to pay-

check and gig to gig, however, suddenly were out of work.

“At that moment, it became real to me. Many of those peo-

ple are my good friends. [They] are going to be struggling

with simple things like providing food on the table,” Knight

said. “I started to think about how can I help the community,

how can I help my friends, how can I be a soldier and a light of

positive energy during a time that gets darker and darker ev-

ery day it seems.”

It’s the new reality for L.A.’s commercial dance world, an

already exclusive and fragile industry. As the entertainment

business comes to a halt, commercial dancers and choreo-

graphers — the performers who animate film, TV and music

videos — said the experience has been surreal and stressful.

“The air is thick with grief and fear,

JAQUEL KNIGHT, at KreativMndz Dance Academy in Burbank, has linked with eatery Everytable for free meals to dance crowd.

Kent NishimuraLos Angeles Times

Keeping dancers on

their feet isn’t easy

‘We’re all broke,’ says one, as assistance helps ease lost income

BYMAKEDAEASTER>>>

[SeeDancers, E3]

In his more than two dec-
ades working as a paparazzi
photographer, Giles Harri-
son has gone to some wild
extremes to get the shots he
wanted. He was once chased
across the Gulf of Mexico by
law enforcement personnel
in gunboats while trying to
photograph Brad Pitt and
Jennifer Aniston on vaca-
tion. He hung outside a heli-
copter to snap aerial photos
of the 1997 wedding of Andre
Agassi and Brooke Shields.
Still, nothing prepared
him for the unprecedented
challenge of working as a pa-
parazzo in the middle of a

Paparazzi hustle for new angle

As celebrities shelter

at their homes, the job

of catching a glimpse

has gotten tougher.

VETERANphotographer Giles Harrison patrols the Pacific Palisades area hoping

to find a celeb venturing outside for some exercise or running an errand in town.

Kent NishimuraLos Angeles Times

[SeePaparazzi, E2]

By Josh Rottenberg

Just a few weeks ago,

when the game world was

anticipating the next gener-

ation of consoles, such as

Sony’s PlayStation 5 and

Microsoft’s Xbox Series X,

we had no way of knowing

that soon a new game plat-

form would emerge. It’s one

that had long been right in

front of us and seems espe-

cially attuned to life during

the coronovirus pandemic:

Zoom.

Video conferencing plat-

form Zoom had been used

regularly and often in busi-

ness settings, but in our new

stay-at-home, work-at-

home lifestyle it has become

a prime way to connect, be it

for jobs, for school, for social-

izing or even for fitness. And,

as an academic team at USC

has discovered, it’s a pretty

good place to play.

“Play is very natural to

fall into, and playing with

non-game platforms is

something humans have

been doing for a long time,”

says Aubrey Lynn Isaac-

man, a game designer and

student in USC’s Interactive

Media MFA program. Isaac-

man references the Choose

Your Own adventure books

popular in the 1980s, noting

that where there is a me-

dium, there is play.

“With so many people

staying at home,” Isaacman

Zoom taking off

for gamer crowd

With USC students

creating new titles for

the platform, it’s gone

beyond business now.

[SeeZoom, E3]

TODD MARTENS

GAME CRITIC

Just a few days after the

World Health Organization

declared COVID-19 a pan-

demic and as California’s

public spaces began to shut

down one by one, Sean Grif-

fin, a founder of the avant-

garde opera company Opera

Povera, posted a random

thought to Facebook: “I’m

sure there are a few cool

Pauline Oliveros pieces we

could all perform together in

quarantine.”

The response from fellow

artists and performers, says

Griffin, was immediate: “A

bunch of people said, ‘We’ll

do it!’ ”

So on Tuesday evening,

for six hours, more than 250

artists from around the

world will gather for an epic

online performance of the

late composer’s “The Lunar

Opera: Deep Listening For

_Tunes,” an open-form op-

era in which the enlisted per-

formers create their own

characters, movements and

sound based on sonic cues

known only to themselves.

“It’s not really a spectator

operabut a participant op-

era,” says Griffin. “It’s par-

ticipating with everybody

else’s creative interpreta-

tion.”

The opera features a li-

bretto by Ione, a writer and

sound artist (who also hap-

pened to be Oliveros’ wife).

And the score is made not

with notesbut with words: a

set of instructions that Ol-

iveros wrote two decades

ago. They amount to five

sentences:

• Each performer creates
  their own character with

Tuesday’s streaming

benefit with a world

cast gives coronavirus

relief for musicians.

By Carolina A.

Miranda

[SeeOpera, E2]

‘Pink

Moon’

opera

goes

global

News updates

reveal plenty

Television Critic

Robert Lloyd looks at

the art of the press

conference. E6

Off the charts

on creepy meter

Film Critic Justin

Chang on the female

revenge tale “The

Other Lamb.” E6

Comics...................E4-5

What’s on TV..........E6