Cinematic history gets a brief workout
The glorious marquee is all that still burns from Polk Street’s Alhambra movie palace, now a Crunch Gym. But for one night, it will all come back, thanks to “The Alhambra Project,” a video intervention and performance.
The cushioned chairs will not replace the workout equipment, but the big screen will loop a 15-minute video made of excerpts from movies shown there between the Alhambra’s grand opening in 1926 and its closing in 1996. The public is invited to help activate the project by partaking in choreographed movements based on the films.
Or stand still and watch a cycle of six videos made by artists under the direction of curators Lynn Marie Kirby and Christoph Steger, both professors of fine art at the California College of the Arts.
“The project celebrates cinema and exercise in the Alhambra Theater,” says Kirby.
Also part of the project is a neighborhood video tour with 17 stops accessed by a mobile app put together by Sam Elie.