A remarkable short dance piece from Mozambique incorporating memories of colonialism. Nyusi was a founding member and dancer of the National Company of Canto and Dance (CND)
More at Atanasio Nyusi
A remarkable short dance piece from Mozambique incorporating memories of colonialism. Nyusi was a founding member and dancer of the National Company of Canto and Dance (CND)
More at Atanasio Nyusi
Pretty stunning…
Thanks to YouTuber Guillaume Néry
Monday morning, John Travolta and Karen Lynn Gorney at the Brooklyn disco…
Thanks to YouTuber frontera2032
The fabulous Four Step Brothers, from “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” (1942).
Thanks to YouTuber What the Eye Hears
The Meetles, a Beatles cover band, sets people in the Times Square subway station dancing to their three song Beatles set.
Click on the video above for a dance party!
More at MeetlesVideos
Monday morning, Cab Calloway “keeps you groovy 24 hours a day.”
Marie Bryant is Calloway’s dance partner here.
Thanks to YouTuber TheHideHoMan
(Click to play video)
YouTube comments say the wild lead dancer and choreographer is Bobby Banas who played one of the Jets in West Side Story.
Thanks To YouTuber Matthew Enderlin
I’m not a fan of Ginger Rogers’s singing, but Fred Astaire’s dancing afterwards is just great.
Thanks to YouTuber Comic Spirit
Monday morning as we congratulate Myles Frost for winning the Tony for his portrayal of MJ in the Broadway musical about Jackson’s life, here’s the real thing.
Thanks to YouTuber Pwnsweet
John “Bubbles” Sublett, who taught Fred Astaire how to tap, and played Sportin’ Life in Porgy and Bess, was a master of rhythm tap. He appears in the clip above in the 1937 film, Varsity Show, with his long time partner Ford “Buck” Washington.
Thanks to YouTuber AndresDCE
Monday morning Brazilian singer Natasha Llerena with dancer Manuel Kanza.
Musicians:
Eduardo Andrade (guitar and musical direction)
Alexandre Berreldi (bass)
Pat Costta (backing vocal)
Michel Nascimento (percussion)
Pedro Amparo (percussion)
More at Natasha Llerena
Thanks to Arthur Stead for drawing my attention to her music.
Monday morning, put the oxygen tanks on standby.
That’s Graeme Henderson putting the chorus gypsies through their paces in the London West End revival of 42nd Street
Thanks to YouTuber Great Performances | PBS
A delightful dance from The Birmingham Royal Ballet in David Bintley’s Hobson’s Choice, about the three daughters of a shoestore owner. With Stephen Wicks as Albert Prosser and Chenca Williams as Alice Hobson.
Thanks to YouTuber Ballet archive
James Cagney hoofing as George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy
Thanks to YouTuber Dana Spiardi
If your only experience with seeing Ray Bolger dance is as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, you have a treat awaiting you in this clip from the 1949 film, Look For The Silver Lining.
Thanks to YouTuber Bill Green
From Abbott and Costello’s Pardon My Sarong, 1942
Samuel Green (Tip), Ted Fraser (Tap) and Ray Winfield (Toe).
That’s Ray Winfield doing the slides.
Thanks to YouTuber Ákos Bulyáki
That’s 1954’s “Living It Up” with Jerry Lewis, and the explosive Sheree North who was being groomed to be the next Marilyn Monroe.
Thanks to YouTuber SoleilSmile
From Panama Hattie, 1942, The Berry Brothers with their signature routine which Rusty Frank talks about in her great book, TAP!: The Greatest Tap Dance Stars & Their Stories.
Thanks to YouTuber warnerarchive
From The Ziegfield Follies of 1931, the amazing 17 year old Hal LeRoy.
And a happy Bar Mitzvah to Nat!
Thanks to YouTuber patrix springer
Powell and Rich, that is. Two of the greatest percussionists in movie musicals. This number (with Red Skelton and Bert Lahr looking on) is from Ship Ahoy.
Thanks to YouTuber Richard Preston
“El Yiyo,” on the right, whose real name is Miguel Fernández, and his younger brother, Ricardo, bring some amazing Flamenco-influenced dancing to modern audiences.
Thanks to YouTuber MIQUEL Gascon
Our friend of the blog, Dennis Mayne, wrote me and said that since I like tap dancers so much I just had to read Rusty Frank’s book, TAP!: The Greatest Tap Dance Stars & Their Stories, where she interviewed all the tap dancing legends! Well, I got the book, and for the last month every morning with my coffee I have been delightedly reading these wonderful primary source interviews with Bunny Briggs, Jimmy Slyde, Hermes Pan, Shirley Temple, Ann Miller and so many more. Fortunately I was able to contact Rusty and we had a delightful interview about her book and she even gave me a little on-air tap dancing lesson!
Click on the triangle or mp3 link above to hear my interview with Rusty Frank as broadcast today on the Arts Express radio program on WBAI FM NYC and Pacifica affiliates across the nation.
And let’s end the year with this amazing clip of Eleanor Powell tap dancing. What she does, just from a percussion point of view, is incredible. I recently interviewed tap dancer Rusty Frank, a tap dance historian and preservationist, and a tap dancer herself, who maintains that it was the tap dancers who moved popular music forward with their taps. The innovative percussive rhythm steps of the tap dancers were picked up by the drummers, pianists and guitar players of the bands who in turn shaped the new ideas in music. Watch and listen to what Eleanor Powell does with this George Gershwin song from Lady Be Good. It’s a long way from “Tea for Two.”
Thanks to YouTuber Ms2doggies
I’ve previously posted video of Sammy Davis Jr. as a child dancing. Here he is, later in his career. The opening clip as part of the Will Mastin Trio sure convinces me that breakdancing isn’t anything new. Later in the video, Sammy can be seen tapping with some of the other tap dancing greats.
This really made me smile.
Thanks to YouTuber pampa777
Another of the great, but lesser known, film dance stars, Tommy Rall, who died this month. As a youngster, he was in a group of dancing teens called the “Jivin’ Jacks and Jills” at Universal Studios, which included Donald O’Connor. He was trained in ballet, and his amazing high jumps, pirouettes, and flips rival anything else seen on the screen. He appeared in movie musicals almost every year in the 50s, but somehow he never made it into super-stardom. O’Connor thought Rall was one of the greatest dancers living, a better dancer than either Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire.
Here he is with Ann Miller in “Why Can’t You Behave?” from Kiss Me Kate, where he mixes dance with some practical jokes in a fun character piece.
Click on the image to play.
Thanks to YouTuber JOHANNQUETEBEO