Choreographer Alan Johnson takes center stage!
On a delicious Saturday afternoon last September, a bunch of dance devotees gathered at The Paley Center for Media to fete one of their own: the witty, prolific, tart-tongued choreographer Alan Johnson, an industry veteran of theater, nightclub, television, cinema and any-dance for the camera. “I had been thinking lately [about my career] wondering, ‘What ...
God dances. Bow down!
Mar
4
2015
At arts·meme, the words ‘Fred Astaire’ are not necessary. We believe the short code, “god,” will suffice. Here the 70-year old hoofer (now hoofer-in-heaven) gets pulled, ever modestly and reluctantly, into a solo performance by Bob Hope, at the 1970 Academy Awards show at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. The brilliant solo (we love his ‘do-the-swim,’ ...
Writhing & wriggling Gwen Verdon elicits yawns in “David and Bathsheba”
In this wonderful clip from DAVID AND BATHSHEBA (1951), the great Gwen Verdon fails to arouse the attention of a couple of onlookers, despite choreographer Jack Cole throwing every slinky trick in the book at them. Watching Gorgeous Gwen, you’d think they’d at least sit up in their chairs! The 20th Century-Fox Biblical epic, directed ...
Jail bait from Hollywood choreographer Alex Romero
A new book “The Man Who Made the Jailhouse Rock: Alex Romero, Hollywood Choreographer,” author, Mark Knowles, briefly reviewed: Alex Romero was one of the last of the Hollywood Studio staff choreographers who never received the attention or success he deserved. As if his life story is not remarkable enough, his talents were well known ...
Dance DNA: The Nicholas Brothers honored at the Alex 1
What caused these two dancers, each bringing his own qualities and characteristics, to meld and synergize into a ballistic dance unit known as The Nicholas Brothers? Sly Stone said it best: “It’s a family affair.” This was the implicit message delivered across an incredibly fun Sunday evening spent with the two handsome and talented gentlemen ...
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 ...
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 — ...
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 ...