Posts Tagged ‘dance’
Deja vu all over again…
Movie: Inception
Actor: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Location: Paris, France
Photographer: Jazz Gabriel
How does one combine one’s loves of movies and travel? Allen Fuqua created Movie Mimic.
Movie: Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Actress: Rebecca Hall
Location: National Art Museum of Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain (Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, Espanya)
With: Juan Sánchez
Photographer: Felipe ?
More, at Movie Mimic.
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As we position ourselves carefully, we might send terpsichorean birthday greetings to Frederick Austerlitz; he was born in Omaha, Nebraska on this date in 1899. Despite a producer’s verdict on an early audition– “Can’t act, can’t sing, balding. Can dance a little.”– Fred Astaire, as he was better known, prospered. In a career that spanned 76 years, the film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer, and actor starred in 31 musicals– and has been named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute.
Gene Kelly, another major innovator in filmed dance, said that “the history of dance on film begins with Astaire.” And beyond film and television, many classical dancers and choreographers in other forms– Rudolf Nureyev, Sammy Davis, Jr., Michael Jackson, Gregory Hines, Mikhail Baryshnikov, George Balanchine, and Jerome Robbins among them– also acknowledged Astaire’s importance and influence.
As for Ginger Rogers, with whom he co-starred in 10 films, her admiration was qualified: “I don’t know why everyone makes such a fuss about Fred Astaire’s dancing. I did all the same steps, only backwards. And in heels!”
Mown down…
George C Ballas, Sr, the Houston, Texas, dance studio owner who changed the way America cut its grass when he invented the Weed Eater aka the weed whacker, died [late last month] of natural causes. He was 85. Ballas (seen here with an early prototype) got the idea for the mower while sitting in a car wash wondering if those spinning bristles could be modified to trim grass and weeds in areas a lawnmower couldn’t reach. Turns out they could. He founded his Weed Eater company in 1971, made a bundle, and later sold the invention to Emerson Electric for an undisclosed sum. “A Weed Eater comes along once in a lifetime,” he said. Although he’s known as the Weed King, Ballas’ life was dance. He was an Arthur Murray dance instructor and his own Dance Studio USA was the world’s largest (43,000 square feet); his wife was a noted flamenco dancer; his son Corky is a champion ballroom dancer; and his grandson Mark is a professional dancer, a regular partner on Dancing With the Stars. (AP photo)
Via World of Wonder.
As we dance our way under those inconvenient hedges and into those pesky corners, we might wish a spectacularly happy birthday to Phineas Taylor (“P.T.”) Barnum; he was born on this date in 1810. Barnum founded and ran a small business, then a weekly newspaper in his native Connecticut before leaving for New York City and the entertainment business. He parlayed a variety troop and a “curiosities” museum (featuring the ‘”Feejee” mermaid’ and “General Tom Thumb”) into a fortune… which he lost in a series of legal setbacks. He replenished his stores by touring as a temperance speaker, then served as a Connecticut State legislator and as Mayor of Bridgeport (a role in which he introduced gas lighting and founded the Bridgeport hospital)… It wasn’t until after his 60th birthday that he turned to endeavor for which he’s best remembered– the circus.
“I am a showman by profession…and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me.”
source: Library of Congress
Interior Decoration Notes: Sweet!
Gummy Bearskin Rug (Brock Davis)
[TotH to Laughing Squid]
As we resolve to redecorate, we might recall that it was on this date in 1912 that fifteen young female employees were fired by Curtis Publishing, publisher of the Ladies Home Journal, for dancing the “Turkey Trot” during their lunch break.
Female employees not dancing at Curtis Publishing (source)
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