Fanchon’s Follies
Oct
25
2011
[click photo for detail] Lovely ballet by Fanchon (1896-1965) nee Fanny Woolf, a vaudevillian and early Hollywood choreographer. I heard her name dropped during a talk about MGM studio where she apparently worked. Photo comes from the archive of Washington University. Fanchon & Marco website here. Another write-up here. Thank you University of Washington Libraries ...
Tutu Taylor
It was a hell of a week for ballet. Our most brilliant male ballet dancer, a true wunderkind, a homegrown wonder, David Hallberg, got a job offer from the Bolshoi Ballet, better, obviously, than his current gig with American Ballet Theatre. So off he goes. Hallberg’s young, 29, he doesn’t speak the language, and Russia ...
Line-up of geniuses: West Side Story’s Broadway creative/production team
The West Side Story Broadway production team in 1957: (l. to r.) lyricist Stephen Sondheim, scriptwriter Arthur Laurents, producers Hal Prince and Robert Griffith (seated), composer Leonard Bernstein and choreographer Jerome Robbins. (click for detail) Thank you, songbook1, for posting this photo. Like this? Read more: Not a Jet, but still the swingingest thing: George ...
Headlining at the Rainbow Room: Jack Cole and his Dancers
Sep
14
2011
Cafe Life in New York Jack Cole and His Dancers Featured in the Rainbow Room’s New Show (by) Malcolm Johnson The New York Sun, Saturday, May 18, 1942: The Rainbow Room’s new show, introduced this week, is a gay diversion highlighted by the colorful performance of Jack Cole and his Dancers. In fact there is ...
The Agnes & Cecil Show 1
From Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille, by Scott Eyman, published by Simon & Schuster, 2010, page 307-308. Agnes deMille was struggling in London to make ends meet when Cecil hired her for six weeks at $250 a week to create the dances for Cleopatra. It ended badly, but then it ...
Rita’s dad
Hurricane Irene, heading our direction in New York City, where we are visiting, can prove no match for Hurricane Rita. Lovely Rita’s dancing father, Eduardo Cansino, tangoes here, courtesy of the digital photo collection of the New York Public Library. I spent the last two days in the glorious Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center, ...
Still the swingingest thing: West Side Story’s George Chakiris
A lot of ladies — and quite a few gents including American Ballet Theatre principal dancer Marcelo Gomes and the just-retired Jose Manuel Carreno — gawked as West Side Story star George Chakiris entered the Founder’s Room of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Los Angeles Music Center. It was the opening night reception following ...
Music and dance contribute to early Disney animation
In this clip from a talk at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival last summer, the amazing Marge Champion, 91, chats with the Pillow’s Director of Preservation, Norton Owen, about her participation in Walt Disney’s Snow White (1937). The occasion was the publishing of Mindy Aloff’s super book, “Hippo in a Tutu: Dancing in Disney Animation.” Mindy, ...