A. Piazzolla – Libertango
An evening pause: Performed 2010 by the Moscow City Symphony, dancers Inna Svechnikova and Dmitry Chernysh.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Tag: dance
Tchaikovsky – Waltz of the Flowers
An evening pause: Most people today likely associate this music with space stations and spacecraft in space (influenced by the movie 2001: a Space Odyssey), but this video shows the real reason it was written, for dancing the waltz.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Tim “Randm” Salaz – Modern dance
An evening pause: As one commenter on youtube said, “This guy’s body must be fully made of water.”
Hat tip Dave McCooey.
Samba – Bamboleo
An evening pause: Stay with it, the second and third dancing couples in this compilation are especially good. This isn’t Astaire & Rogers, but it is superbly done, nonetheless.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Srna Kocevska & Alexandra Gjoreska – the Charleston
An evening pause: The dance says the 1920s. It is also amazing how many different moves they do, yet every move belongs to this same dance.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Bob Fosse – Cuarto de la Banda
An evening pause: A very different dance number from the 1969 film Sweet Charity, the first that Bob Fosse directed.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers – Never Gonna Dance
An evening pause: We’ve had a lot of 1970s pop songs and dance recently. Here’s an example of one of the greatest movie dance numbers, from the 1936 movie Swing Time. Note how smooth and ballet-like it is, unlike the staccato and gymnastic styles that began to dominate dance after the 1960s.
Note also the remarkable lack of cuts. The dance is performed with only one cut, which means Astaire and Rogers had to get it perfect, the whole way through each of these two shots. It took 47 takes before they succeeded.
AcroDuoBallet – Arabian Dance
An evening pause: Beautifully performed, with grace and style. The performers are Elena Petrichenko and Sergey Chumakov.
Hat tip Mike Nelson.
Cagney & Hope – Dance routine
An evening pause: From the 1955 film, The Seven Little Foys, with Bob Hope playing Eddie Foy, and James Cagney reprising the role of George M. Cohen, first played by him in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942).
Hat tip Thomas Keener.
Grace Thomas – Electro Swing Dance Freestyle
Eleanor Powell & Buddy Rich – I’ll Take Tallulah
An evening pause: Actually, the song is the least interesting thing about this dance number from Ship Ahoy (1942). Stick with it to see the dance interplay between dancer Powell and drummer Rich.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Janik & Arnaut – Snake dance
An evening pause: From the 1954 Colgate Comedy Hour Christmas Special with Abbott & Costello.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers – They Can’t Take That Away From Me
An evening pause: Another movie pause tonight, this time showing the films themselves. This clip includes two performances of this song, from two different Astaire & Rogers films. The first, from Shall We Dance? (1937), has Astaire singing the song, knowing that the Rogers character is leaving him. Of course she ends up not going.
The second clip is from The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), their last film together and done after a split of ten years. They knew then this would be their last film, and now the words have a meaning far greater than the story in the film. When they exit at the end of this song, they know it is pretty much for the last time.
Hat tip to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime.
Herb Alpert – Puttin’ on the Ritz
An evening pause: From the youtube page:
The Puttin’ On The Ritz music video is a creative collaboration between Alpert, artist Glenn Kaino and filmmaker Afshin Shahidi with choreographers Napoleon & Tabitha D’umo from So You Think You Can Dance and produced by Kerith Lemon. One long camera shot follows the lead dancer, Vincent Noiseux on a musical journey and features musicians Lani Hall, Bill Cantos, Hussain Jiffry and Michael Shapiro as well as corps dancers like Kherington Payne and others that have been seen on So You Think You Can Dance, America’s Best Dance Crew, Dancing with the Stars, This is It, Step Up and more.
Hat tip Tom Biggar, who notes that Albert makes some cameos, which I think includes both the bus driver and the bartender.
Cab Calloway and the Nicholas Brothers – Jumpin Jive
An evening pause: The dancing here is as good if not better than anything you will see in an Astaire & Rogers movie.
Hat tip Thomas Biggar.
Ansambl Black Angels – 5 elements (Earth, Water, Air, Fire and Love)
An evening pause: Stay with it. The title will become clear, and you will then want to stay with the end.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Mohammed Rafi – Jaan Pehchan Ho
An evening pause: From the 1965 Bollywood thriller Gumnaam. It ain’t Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly, but it definitely has that 1960s energy and enthusiasm.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
The Ross Sisters – Solid Potato Salad
An evening pause: From the 1944 movie, Broadway Rhythm. It might be cheesy, but who cares.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
Green Grass Cloggers- music by Strictly Strings
An evening pause: As described on the website, this was an “individual ‘freestyle clogging’ exhibition by the Green Grass Cloggers with old time string band music by Strictly Strings from Boone, North Carolina.’
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Guangdong Acrobatic Troupe of China
An evening pause: Very beautifully done, but I must admit that my back hurt watching some of this.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
Julie Gautier – AMA
An evening pause: As I watched I could not help thinking of the difficulty of doing this underwater. The music is “Rain in Your Black Eyes,” Ezio Bosso, pianist.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
Strawhatz – A China Concept
An evening pause: That this even hints at political incorrectness requires that we watch it. And besides, the dancing is most intriguing.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
The first music video in zero gravity
Update: The music video itself has been pulled from youtube for copyright reasons that I don’t quite understand. However, the making of video is still available, and that will give you a pretty good feel for some of the stuff in the original piece.
I was going to make this an evening pause, but then decided it shouldn’t wait. This music video, by OK-Go, is unique and somewhat historic, as it I think is the first to have been done in zero gravity, using an airplane to fly parabolic arcs. It demonstrates clearly the fantastic and as present almost unimaginable possibilities of dance in weightlessness, as it also might be the first time that professional dancers, the two women, are given a chance to do moves in microgravity.
Be sure to also watch the making of video below the fold. And go here for the story behind the video.
Update: The music video itself has been pulled from youtube for copyright reasons that I don’t quite understand. However, the making of video is still available, and that will give you a pretty good feel for some of the stuff in the original piece.
I was going to make this an evening pause, but then decided it shouldn’t wait. This music video, by OK-Go, is unique and somewhat historic, as it I think is the first to have been done in zero gravity, using an airplane to fly parabolic arcs. It demonstrates clearly the fantastic and as present almost unimaginable possibilities of dance in weightlessness, as it also might be the first time that professional dancers, the two women, are given a chance to do moves in microgravity.
Be sure to also watch the making of video below the fold. And go here for the story behind the video.
Uptown Funk – Mark Ronson
Hope and Cagney dancing
An evening pause: From the 1955 Bob Hope film, The Seven Little Foys, with James Cagney playing George M. Cohan. Neither man is remembered for their dancing, but from this scene you wouldn’t know it.
Hat tip Tom Biggar.
The Swiss Top Secret Drum Corp
Guang Dong – Pas de deux
Fred Astaire & Barrie Chase – Miss Otis Regrets
Cirque Du Soleil
Let’s dance
An evening pause: Of the movies from which these dance sequences come, how many can you name? All of them are worth watching, over and over again.