SCÈNE 13. Kalena Yiaueki, Executive Producer, Founder of Black Image Center and Penny Projects, and Filmmaker
A director-choreographer's unscrewed morning ritual reveals the tightrope between self-sacrifice and sabotage.
Welcome to edition number 13 of Mise-En-Scène! Lucky number 13, as today also happens to be my birthday. My birthday wish for us all is to have more space in our lives to indulge in brain-expanding culture, without haste or guilt or feeling like we’re the recipients of a Hard Sell, stuck watching something programmed to tell us what to think and how to feel. I hope you take in something this week that’s a real experience.
In this edition, our guest curator is Kalena Yiaueki (@gorgeous_r_us_911), a compelling producer and community-shaper who I’ve long admired. As the founder of the newly hatched Penny Projects, Kalena leverages her years of experience in production and injects humanity into the high gloss, executing starry luxury fashion projects and celebrity campaigns with a personal touch. In 2020, Kalena co-founded Black Image Center, a Los Angeles-based non-profit and community space dedicated to investing in Black photographers and creatives through educational programming, photography workshops, and resource-sharing events. All this, and she’s working on her first film.
Kalena’s Mise-En-Scène selection is All That Jazz (1979), Bob Fosse’s auto-fiction masterwork about live-wire director-choreographer Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider, proxy-perfect as Fosse’s stand-in) balancing two stressful projects—a feature film, a new Broadway musical—a young daughter, an ex-wife, a dancer girlfriend, an impending health emergency, and the cacophony of showbiz life. All That Jazz is a Fellini-esque fever dream crossed with a Minnelli backstage romp, all while exuding its own self-possessed expression (emphasis on the “possessed”). There isn’t a scathing, self-reflective film-memoir like it, before or since. The film has spawned inspired cultural Easter eggs through the decades, from the wake-up ritual scenes in Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette (2005) to Paula Abdul’s 1989 music video for “Cold Hearted” (freshly meta-referenced by Ariana Grande just this year) to Kalena’s own Penny Projects merch.
Up ahead, Kalena1 discusses her favorite scene from All That Jazz and the truth it tells about pained genius.
“IT’S SHOWTIME, FOLKS!”: EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, FOUNDER & FILMMAKER KALENA YIAUEKI ON ALL THAT JAZZ, 1979
The morning routine scene in All That Jazz is incredibly important to me and my understanding of film. The colors are amazing, vividly capturing the essence of deeply flawed people—people who remind me of those I know. These individuals are incredible geniuses, yet they are always in pain, masked with drugs, alcohol, sex, trying to sort through the wounds of the past… anything to avoid intimacy and accountability. It's a stark reminder of how the never-ending well of success can be used by broken people to fill the holes in their lives. This scene beautifully portrays the paradox of brilliance and brokenness, reflecting the vulnerability and complexity of human nature that I find so relatable and poignant.
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KALENA YIAUEKI RECOMMENDS
In addition to Fosse, Kalena shares what’s in her rotation of personal beacons, from theater to pasta to healing. All worthy of applause.
Kalena says: Basta Pasta, always. Japanese doing Italian food has always been something I’ve loved.New Theater Hollywood, theater and theater group.
Kalena says: A space for the broken dreams of Hollywood to seep into the insular worlds of literature, art, film, music, et al.
Kern Samuel, artist.
Kalena says: A brilliant artist who just did statements at Basel, who happens to be my best friend.Zsela’s new album, Big For You (2024).
Kalena says: She is beyond brilliant.Anyone doing the work to better understand themselves and their trauma.
Kalena says: It’s exhausting.
That’s all for this edition! Thank you to our guest curator Kalena Yiaueki for her elite selection. You can view her work with Penny Projects here and follow the Black Image Center here.
Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz is notoriously challenging to find on streaming platforms, but I recommend investing in the Criterion Collection DVD or, better yet, going full cinephile and purchasing the Blu-Ray.
Thank you for reading! As always, my DMs and comments are open to your feedback, musings, and suggestions for future editions. You can also follow this project on Instagram at @yourmiseenscene.
Until next time!
Answers have been lightly edited for clarity.