Preeminent dance movie posters @ Barnsdall

Dance · Film · Visual arts
We’re super looking forward to touring through a wonderful installation of dance movies posters now on display at Barnsdall Gallery Theater. We already saw it once, but it’s so fabulous that repeat viewings are called for. Twenty distinct pieces in varying sizes and rarity comprise GOTTA DANCE!, the majority dating from the golden age of ...

Book review: ‘Hermes Pan, The Man Who Danced with Fred Astaire’ 3

Dance · Film · Reviews
A book review first published by Dance Magazine [December 2012] Growing up in Memphis as the son of Greek immigrants, Hermes Pan (1909–1990) copped dance steps from the family’s African-American household help. Fast-forward to the Depression, when the self-taught Hollywood choreographer’s black-and-white dance fantasies for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers offered Americans escape. The versatile ...

Barrie Chase to reminisce about her favorite dance partner 1

Dance
We would never miss the upcoming event at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences this Thursday evening when the elegant, long-legged beauty, Barrie Chase, appears in person for a fun screening and panel discussion.  Clips from four of the Emmy-Award winning television specials Chase made with Fred Astaire in the late 1950s and early ...

Fred & Barrie for the Fourth 2

Dance · Fashion
The meeting of two slenderellas …. in her red jumpsuit, Barrie Chase looks like a Fourth of July firecracker!

Gene from Pittsburgh 1

Dance
I’ve  been spending a lot of time with Gene Kelly for the past week. It’s a good feeling. We’re from the same home town. Kelly was a huge movie star. The only other dancer to reach that level was Fred — not from Pittsburgh. Read my story on The Huffington Post.

Twentieth century’s greatest male dancers

Dance
I was born mid-century. So I wasn’t around for the first half. I missed Nijinsky. But here are my candidates for the four most influential male dancers of the twentieth.

David Hallberg grew up obsessed by Fred Astaire

Dance
Studying tap dance as a kid, before he got proper shoes, says David Hallberg, “I taped nickels on the bottom of my penny loafers.” Hallberg explains this charmingly in a marvelous profile that aired today on CBS’s News’s  “Sunday Morning” program. The premier dancer of the Bolshoi Ballet and principal at American Ballet Theatre more ...

Michael Jackson visited Martha Graham studio 2

Dance · Music
“And then he’d have to go back to whatever he’d go back to. And it just went wrong. Who knows what happened?” Michael Jackson lived the life he lived. He navigated a tangle of destiny and choice, as do we all. Jackson was born into a certain family, a certain fate, and he was a ...

Aronofsky’s BLACK SWAN: Raw deal for Odile 6

Dance · Film
Seconds into Darren Aronofsky’s psychological thriller BLACK SWAN, the hyperkinetic camera zooms in on a pink pointe shoe. A woman is dancing, but we don’t see her. We see only the impeccable chop-chop of her shoes. It’s a smart directorial move. Cinephiles and foot fetishists are primed for a good time, but dance lovers’ hearts ...