Cover girl. The great Chita Rivera.
Chita Rivera, DANCE Magazine Nov 1957 West Side Story opened on Broadway in September 1957. By November, DANCE Magazine had a new cover girl.
Chita & ‘chicas’: WSS’s original ‘America’ dance crew 1
Chita Rivera out front. Behind, L to R: Carmen Gutierrez, Lynn Ross, Liane Plane (unseen behind Chita), Frances Taylor “Chita was so incredible as Anita,” our friend George Chakiris told the audience when I interviewed him in 2015. He played “Riff” in the London production of West Side Story circa 1958/59. Doing that meant keeping ...
Dancer’s ploy for getting on Ed Sullivan Show
Dec
30
2021
You want to dance on Ed Sullivan, right? So why not make a dance about … Ed Sullivan? The creators used this ultimate ploy to tickle a narcissist’s fancy and also entertain the public. This tidy dance number, which echoes Bob Fosse’s “Rich Man’s Frug” in many ways, is the work of two choreographers, Hal ...
Beloved Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater stays safe on stage & screen
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Alvin Ailey’s Revelations, 2021 Opening Night Gala. Photo: Christopher Duggan On December 1, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater returned triumphantly to New York City Center – its home base in the city for 50 years – having foregone its 2020 season (and a great deal of touring) during ...
From our Washington D.C. correspondent, Toni Basil
photo courtesy toni basil, and the kennedy center awards Toni, who choreographed multiple of Midler’s ornate staged pageants, writes on Facebook: So proud to have been with my incredible, long-time friend, Bette Midler, to watch her receive her lifetime achievement award for artistic achievement at The Kennedy Center Honors. Other honorees included Berry Gordy, Lorne ...
‘I can’t dance,’ signals Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball in ‘Being The Ricardos’ 2
It’s no spoiler to share that in one scene of BEING THE RICARDOS, a cultural cataclysm heading our way December 10 in theatres and on Amazon PRIME, Nicole Kidman, as Lucille Ball, lets drop that her sexy boyfriend Desi Arnaz (Javiar Bardem) is going to teach her how to rumba. The embarrassing display that follows ...
Love is Love: Pride Night at ABT ‘Nutcracker’ December 15
Dec
8
2021
In the video above, Hee Seo, rehearses for opening night of American Ballet Theatre‘s “The Nutcracker”Friday night at Segerstrom Center for the Arts. The video displays what an exquisite ballerina she is. There is no doubt that every night at the ballet is a pride night for gay men and women. That’s indicated by the ...
A flash of modernism: E.O. Hoppé meets The Firebird 2
Tamara Karsavina, Adolph Bolm in “The Firebird” (1911) A moment of silence, please, for this splendid photograph, a capture of choreographer Michel Fokine’s “The Firebird,” a ballet created to Igor Stravinsky’s stirring score for Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Dancing in their originating roles are Tamara Karsavina and Adolph Bolm. Yes, it’s a sensational, dance historic moment. ...
Los Angeles, California, home to two choreographer-goddesses
Macaela Taylor, Danielle Agami It’s exciting. For awhile there, things were looking bad. We seemed to be losing the female voice in the contemporary dance space, as men, holding the reins of most operating companies, naturally meted out sparse commissions and jobs to guy-pals. Female dance leaders, critics and scholars sounded the alarm. Foundations, universities, ...
Quarantine blues, back-to-nature edition
There’s the walking blues, the talking blues, and now thanks to filmmaking collaborators Wade Robson and Tony Testa, there’s “DisInteGrated,” the dancing blues, filmed in Maui. Testa, looking like Gilligan in search of his island, convenes with nature — sand, sea, sky, forest, even planted!