 A scene from the optioned screenplay "Jitterbug!" featuring music by Ornette Coleman: "The Artist in America". https://bit.ly/3exUmlL This is another example of music from "The Great American Songbook" being used in the play and screenplay with performing rights secured.
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According to his widow Patricia Kelly, it was "anathema" to him to cut away from the dance for closeups of feet and heads or, for that matter, using cutaways to anything.. His reasoning was if you cut away, you lose the dance. He also insisted in showing the body in full figure, something I believe the great director Robert Wise practiced on "West Side Story" and "The Sound of Music." In her FB post, she gives an example of what he considers "anathema." It's from a 1933 short called "Beer and Pretzels." She uses it to show three dancers who inspired his work on the "Sinbad the Sailor" scene from his "Invitation to the Dance" and its worth a watch and a read. I think Billy and Tharbis could win the climatic dance contest at the Savoy with at least one of these moves. :)  Dance Spirit magazine compiles a LIST of some of cinema's greatest dance scenes. Worth a watch.
Unique Camel Walk/Moon Walk choreography for use in the climatic dance scene where our hero and heroine Billy and Tharbis mirror each others movements by dropping the kind of stuff that would make a jaded Savoy Ballroom audience stand-up and shout!
 Jack Johnson was the first African-American World Heavyweight Boxing Champion (1908-1915). In 1920, he opened a supper club called Club Deluxe in the heart of Harlem at 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue. In 1923, gangster and bootlegger Owney Madden "offered Johnson a deal he couldn't refuse" and the Cotton Club was born.
Thanks to polymath Marshall Davis, Jr, tap dance is alive and well in the 305 and beyond! He is tap dancing's "Grand Philosopher" and his "Revelations in Rhythm" is really a tour de force. Trust me, you've probably never seen anything like this. With Savion Glover, this is well worth a watch and a listen-- to learn something about life and yourself.
Every performing art has its parameters in time and space. What you do within those parameters is challenging, limited only by your imagination and the laws of physics. So, when you see dancers like Zack Richard and Maryse Lebeau exploring the 100-year-old space of the Jitterbug and Lindy by creating moves you've never seen before, well, the old tried and true takes on an air of excitement as they dance in the 2009 International Lindy Hop Championships in Washington, DC. Worth a watch.
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DC CopelandMulti-hyphenate with a penchant for writing. Archives
June 2021
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