Finessing Fosse’s furious, filigreed dance style
Jan
6
2015
New Yorkers can sign on — hey, Angelenos may like to fly east — for a rare opportunity. It’s January’s installment of a monthly master-class series that seeks to preserve a classic American jazz-dance vernacular: the angular, syncopated dance jive fostered by choreographer Bob Fosse. A good sampling of Fosse’s house-style is on view in ...
Cleopatra enters Rome, courtesy of Hermes Pan 1
Excerpted from John Franceschina’s recent Hermes Pan biography, On 10 May 1961, Pan worked out an agreement with [“Cleopatra” producer Walter] Wanger in which he would provide choreography for the film at $2,000 a week, guaranteed for no less than fifteen consecutive weeks. In addition, he was guaranteed credit as “Choreography by Hermes Pan” on ...
Merry Christmas, Adolf! ~ love, TCM 3
Achtung, baby! Righteous programming, this Christmas night, from Turner Classic Movies: choreographer/director Alan Johnson’s TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1984), a remake of the Lubitsch political satire, well selected on this day of off-the-grid distribution of North Korea spoof, “The Interview.” Johnson and the great Mel Brooks collaborated on this promotional video for the ...
Mitchell Leisen’s first design project? A costume for Martha Graham!
Los Angeles has long been an arts beehive, dating back to the 1910s when modern-dance goddess Martha Graham and film director Mitchell Leisen converged here. We enjoyed receiving this amazing Los Angeles dance-film anecdote from Norton Owen, a friend of arts·meme and the Director of Preservation at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival. Writes Norton: I am ...
Shtetl soul to rock citywide Laemmle Theatre “Fiddler” screenings 1
On view here Jerome Robbins’s great “bottle dance” rising in a cloud of soulful Jewish peasant-dust at the wedding ‘banquet’ of Tzeitel and Motel. Apropos this brilliant dance number — for this dance critic the indelible imprint of director Norman Jewison’s surprisingly powerful visual recreation of the Eastern European world of the ‘shtetl’ Jews — ...
Rachel Maddow hails dancing brothers & sisters from Cuba 2
Mr. Obama, tear down that wall! In her news broadcast last night, MSNBC commentator/anchorwoman Rachel Maddow gave a righteous shout-out to the Cuban-expatriate (really “exile’ is the proper expression up till now) classical dancers who grace our major ballet companies — and oh yes, for good measure Maddow also notes sports figures! Featured dance companies ...
Jack Cole’s arm coaches Rita Hayworth in “Amado Mio” from GILDA
For the longest time, we have wondered whether the great choreographer Jack Cole (born in New Brunswick New Jersey, he got his start as a barefoot Denishawn dancer) worked with Rita Hayworth on her Latin-dance number, “Amado Mio” from GILDA (1946). That choreography would be above and beyond his well-acknowledged creation of Rita’s seminal, classy ...
God dances, courtesy of director Charles Walters, on TCM
Fred Astaire wants to be a dancin’ man in THE BELLE OF NEW YORK (1952). Do you think he succeeds? Part of Turner Classic Movies Friday Night Spotlights devoted to the dancing movies, and more, of director Charles Walters.
Mitzi Gaynor to “go on with the show!” @ “There’s No Business … ” screening
We are so looking forward to big screen viewing, on its 60th anniversary, of 20th Century-Fox’s star-studded Cinemascope colossus, THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS (1954) next Tuesday, Dec 9 at the Regent Theater. [Everything you ever wanted to know about “There’s No Business” on this amazing webpage… ] The musical, chock filled with great ...
‘Ivan the Wonderful’ fans the “Flames of Paris”
Nov
29
2014
Russia’s latest Sputnik-in-orbit, Ivan Vasiliev, swapped between adorable, formidable, and simply irresistible as French revolutionary “Philippe” in Mikhailovsky Ballet‘s production of “The Flames of Paris” tonight at Segerstrom Center for the Arts. It was a West Coast debut for the Mikhailovsky, an impressive second-tier player to Russia’s Bolshoi and Kirov ballets. High above the Segerstrom stage, Ivan soared and ...