749 posts tagged with dance.
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Storytelling through dance
KIRINJI - 時間がない (Jikanga Nai) is a super-simple music video of a guy dancing. The dancer/choreographer is also on instagram.
"Music and humor are for the healing of the nations"
This post started as a single video of veteran musicmaker Leonard Solomon performing Skrillex's "Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites" on a homemade "Squijeeblion."
That led to discovering his YouTube channel @Bellowphone, full of similarly whimsical covers on a collection of bespoke instruments hand-built in his Wimmelbildian workshop, from the Emphatic Chromatic Callioforte to the Oomphalapompatronium to the original Majestic Bellowphone.
Searching for more videos led to his performance in the Lonesome Pine One-Man Band Extravaganza special from 1991, where he co-starred with whizbang vaudevillians like Hokum W. Jeebs and Professor Gizmo.
But what was Lonesome Pine? Just an extraordinary, award-winning concert series by the Kentucky Center for the Arts that ran for 16 years on public radio and television -- an "all things considered" showcase for "new artists, underappreciated veterans and those with unique new voices" featuring such luminaries as Buddy Guy, Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, k.d. lang, Koko Taylor, and hundreds more. You can get a broad overview of this televisual marvel from this excellent half-hour retrospective, see a supercut of director Clark Santee's favorite moments, browse the program directory from the Smithsonian exhibit, or watch select shows in their entirety: Lonesome Pine Blues - All-star Bluegrass Band - Nashville All-stars - Bass Instincts - Zydeco Rockers - Walter "Wolfman" Washington - Mark O'Connor - Alison Krauss & Union Station - Sam Bush & John Cowan - Maura O'Connell - Nanci Griffith - A Musical Visit from Africa [more inside]
With personality and freedom, we stick out!
"The four young women wore military helmets and dead-serious expressions. Their fingers, sheathed in tailored white gloves, wiggled on loose wrists. Over a beat of hard-driving taiko drums, they scurried and bounced around the soundstage, scream-singing lyrics that, per the closed caption translation, described a domestic dystopia: 'Dad’s stuck in the grind, the job’s grip is appalling / Mom’s escaping reality, addicted to idols.' It was the explosive U.S. television debut of Atarashii Gakko!, and if you caught it on Jimmy Kimmel Live! late last year, you might have asked yourself: Where did these women come from?" Atarashii Gakko! Are Singularly, Unapologetically Themselves [more inside]
Their Toeses Are Roses
Trevor Tordjman & Jordan Clark get drawn into the greatness of Moses Supposes [via TMN] [more inside]
Top 10 Male ballet dances
I'm far from being a balletomane. But these are extraordinary. I know nothing of the ballet world. I may have seen 2 in my entire life. [more inside]
Bats, fangs, blood, and gore
"There are at least a dozen Dracula ballets, beginning with the 1899 version created for the Budapest Opera." "The dancing has teeth (and so do the dancers)." The count at the Polish National Ballet (video [YT]. Dracula in Kansas City. Three Draculas to watch [YT].
Dance Music Emerges
When Disco Ruled The World [1h]
I Was There When House Took Over the World [40m]
We Call It Techno! [1h40m]
Techno City: What is Detroit Techno? [36m]
Idris Elba's How Clubbing Changed The World [1h40m]
I Was There When House Took Over the World [40m]
We Call It Techno! [1h40m]
Techno City: What is Detroit Techno? [36m]
Idris Elba's How Clubbing Changed The World [1h40m]
Sub Berlin : The Story Of Tresor
Sub Berlin - The Story of Tresor [1h24m, mixed language with embedded English subtitles] is a 2012 documentary about the Berlin nightclub [Wikipedia] that started before the Wall came down, and was one of the defining actors in the evolution of Techno in the early Nineties.
perfectly coordinated aerial turns (SLYT)
U dance team 'elated' after 22nd national championship and online attention A sequence in the choreography took the dancers through a long series of one-legged spins, ending with all 20 dancers flipping an aerial turn in unison.
"That's a hard skill to get on, with 20 people on the floor," Tumbleson said. The dancers and coaches initially planned that only a few dancers would execute the aerial, but the team decided to choreograph the routine with all the dancers making the flying turns. Story here [more inside]
Two-To-Four Hour Party People
Determined not to let parenthood rob them of their raving days, ten years ago Hannah Saunders and Natasha Morabito had a revelation. They decided that no, they weren’t done with raving. They’d just have to do it differently. [more inside]
Do Like This
Favorite Dance Moves. Ed People gets people to show their favorite dance moves from all around the world.
Avantgardey
Precision formation dancing is one of my favorite things. And I was astonished to see Avantgardey's performances from America's Got Talent and Japan's Got Talent. [22m, performances include judging segments, video is chapter marked for convenient skipping]. This 9m video gave me some background about this thrilling dance troupe. And from Taiwan News just a couple of days ago, Japanese dance troupe Avantgardey's Taipei performance goes viral has an embedded Instagram video of another dance.
Good Times
If you haven't already seen the Nile Rodgers & CHIC: Tiny Desk Concert, it's well worth half an hour of your time! [SLYT]
The *other* Boris Karlov
We're Safety Now Haven't We
When you think of real bangers, you wouldn't generally think of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, because, well, they're the ones tasked on keeping you from a... banger. But they just dropped, very carefully, the album-length We're Safety Now Haven't We, a real, uh, banger?
Keep it rockin', doin' the same thing / And we get high on the breakdown
Apparently the "infectious" choreography for Jungle's "Back on 74" has been going viral on TikTok, with everyone from the international touring cast of West Side Story to Emily Ratajkowski getting in on the trend, but I learned about it from this LA Times interview with Shay Latukolan, the choreographer, who has previously lent his talents to videos for Rosalía's "SAOKO" and Stormzy's "Vossi Bop". [more inside]
"We watched him/swallowed by the crowd"
In 1936, Edwin Denby co- wrote: "Horse Eats Hat" with one Orson Welles, age 21. Denby was a dance critic and poet. 'Denby and Balanchine: A Dance Critic’s Work'. 'On an Edwin Denby NYC Traffic Sonnet' is a wonderful look at one of his poems. The Folks at Pennsound has a collection of spoken material. In 2016, the NYPL staff contributed, 'Edwin Denby: Memory, History and Documentation'.
They choose talent, we choose dance
Choose Dance Choose dance.
Four Tet, Fred Again.. & Skrillex in Times Square 4 @TheLotRadio
The Dybbuk and Other Stories, Dances, Plays, and Games
On Oct. 3, 1960, the Play of the Week was The Dybbuk. Directed by Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men, Fail Safe, Dog Day Afternoon, etc.), it was a TV adaptation of S. Ansky's play [PDF] (see "How it Transformed American Jewish Theatre") based on traditional themes (see "A Jewish Monsters and Magic Reading List"). It featured modern dance choreographed by Anna Sokolow, who adapted the play nine years earlier (see "Sokolow's Impact on Dance"). A 1937 Yiddish-language film adaptation is also notable. Other Play of the Week episodes included Medea, The World of Sholem Aleichem, The Iceman Cometh (dir. Sidney Lumet), Thérèse Raquin, and Waiting for Godot. Incidentally, related folklore merges with many fantasy sources in the CC-licensed "New School Revolution" RPG, Cairn by Yochai Gal.
4 and 3
Tiny Desk advent gift
it's kind of like Suspiria but for synth nerds with perms
The year is very very definitely 1971, and these are Rare Moog Dancers.
Woodcocks dancing across the road
The mosh pit can be understood as a form of circle dance
In an effort to overcome my inability to convey (in words) the emotional rush of mosh pits to people who would never step foot into one, in 2016 I started taking my medium-format film camera into metal shows at St. Vitus in Brooklyn, New York.Photojournalist and Anthropology student Ryan Jones looks at mosh pits.
The Most Insane Dance Craze to Ever Exist
Todd in the Shadows' One Hit Wonderland gives a not-necessarily fond retrospective of the 1996 global phenomenon that was "Macarena" by Los Del Rio. It includes vintage footage of people of all walks of life dancing to the Macarena, and he was very right that "there was nowhere safe." There is also some much needed background context of the Spanish artists Los Del Rio and Fangoria, remixers The Bayside Boys, and the unforgettable dance. But if you are reading this and are over 30 years old, you already know the song and know it all too well. (SLYT)
FAMOUS WEDDING SHOW
the feeling that you get when your eyes are wide open
Twyla Tharp and David Byrne's The Catherine Wheel is a dance piece about unhappy families, striving for perfection, war, and other things. (Includes a full recording of the stage production after a 13 minute introduction.) [more inside]
Where the love go?
Hybrid Bharatham EPISODE 5 | Usha Jey Choreography #HybridBharatham is my way of switching between Hip-Hop and Bharathanatyam, 2 dances that I love, learn and respect. My aim is to keep the essence of each dance and create something that do justice to who I am. [more inside]
not (yet) sponsored by Apple
If you have a minute for a lighthearted break from the general grimness, you might enjoy this video of texts tones as dance moves (on Twitter - here the original video on TikTok), a compilation of 40 text tones with associated dance moves performed by dance/choreography duo Cost n’ Mayor (also on Instagram). Enjoy!
Electric Friends of Electric Friends
Electronic pop/dance flourished internationally: Be a Boy, Gina X Performance; Thrash, Cowboys International; Day Breaks, Night Heals, Thomas Leer & Robert Rental; Aurora B., Krisma; Chip 'N' Roll, Silicon Teens; I Need Somebody To Love Tonight, Sylvester; Faites le proton (Inst.), Casino Music; Kameari Pop, P-Model; Margherita (Inst. Hot Edit), Massara; The Visitors (Inst.), Gino Soccio; Alien (12" Disco), Nostromo; Underwater, Harry Thumann. Minimalism too: 1, Galen Herod; Ice Floe, Young Scientist; Have a Good Ride, Pyrolator; Sei Note in Logica, Roberto Cacciapaglia. Trash Theory's Before Are 'Friends' Electric gives a genealogy for high-profile British synth-pop of the year: Electricity (Version II), OMD; Are 'Friends' Electric? Tubeway Army; Cars, Gary Numan. And, technically, it was the year of The New Sound of Music (1979).
Struggle for Pleasure / Café del Mar
Struggle for Pleasure, by Wim Mertens (Antwerp, 2005) (Tenerife Symphony Orchestra, 2008) (Brussels, 2015) was originally released in 1983. The piece influenced 1993's Café Del Mar by Energy 52 (original) (higher quality radio version) which has undergone numerous remixes e.g. Paul Oakenfield's remix, Paul van Dyk's SHINE remix, Michael Woods remix.
Everybody Dance!
It's International Dance Day! It's a day to encourage participation and education in dance through events and festivals held all over the world. Take in some international dance, some jazz dance, some tap (like Michelle Dorrance), some musical theater dancing, some swing dancing, some party dancing, some hip hop, some modern dance, some ballroom dancing, or some ballet. And bob your head, move your feet, or sway a bit yourself. International Dance Day at Wikipedia. dance on MetaFilter. [more inside]
Feeling the beat
Choreographer Antoine Hunter is Deaf. Going to a ballet performance as a kid was the first time Hunter felt in sync with the world instead of isolated and alone. "But this time, I could be in the same rhythm as everyone else." During the pandemic, Hunter taught a40 minute dance class in ASL as part of the #stayFRESHatHOME series. In 2021, the choreographer also partnered with the New Century Chamber Orchestra for the Resonance Series. For people hard of hearing who just want to hit the dance floor, DJ Troi Lee launched Deaf Rave back in 2003 in the UK.
Every lonely city, where I hang my hat.
Two years ago, comedian Peter Kay
proposed a social
media public
public
dance
craze
in
medical and other
worksplaces
and
also
some
other
surprising
venues,
for the
song
called
Amarillo. Tagged everywhere with #BigNightInAmarillo [All links to youtube and twitter videos.]
Taking Flight
You've probably never seen anything like this before. Six members of the vertical dance troupe BANDALOOP dance on...skyscrapers. [more inside]
Siss-Boom-Sass!
Broadway Barbara's Fosse Dance Tutorial! Broadway Barbara's Further Fosse Dance Tutorial! Starring Barbara Dixon, Broadway Barbara!
Modulations - A History Of Electronic Music
Modulations is a 1998 documentary that captures the depth and breadth and history and evolution and culture of electronic music... WHATEVER THAT MIGHT MEAN. It's a bit meandering at times, kind of stream of consciousness, but it pretty much captures it all, from that moment in time.
o p u l e n c e
A languid barely-chat with Octavia St Laurent as Michael Alsando does her hair for Jack Mizrahi's Legends Ball in 2005: Part 1 | Part 2 [more inside]
Fake English... Alright!
For my #DoublesJubilee contribution, I bring up Prisencolinensinainciusol, a song by an Italian singer-songwriter, actor, film director, musician, and dancer Adriano Celentano, is not in Italian. It is not in English. It is fake gibberish that sounds like English to Italians.
I also found some other old posts. [more inside]
dancers extraordinaire Norah, Yarah and Rosa are Let It Happen
And here again are Norah, Yarah and Rosa:
Professor Longhair -- Big Chief Blues (Pt. 2)
2Pac -- Only God Can Judge Me
Common ft. Blackthought, Seun Kuti -- When We Move
aka Let It Happen
So enjoy and as you know... [more inside]
Professor Longhair -- Big Chief Blues (Pt. 2)
2Pac -- Only God Can Judge Me
Common ft. Blackthought, Seun Kuti -- When We Move
aka Let It Happen
So enjoy and as you know... [more inside]
It was a great day for America, everybody
Circa 2010, after David Letterman signed off and the Worldwide Pants production logo faded, viewing audiences were oftentimes treated to a cold open of an empty talk show set... one that quickly became the impromptu dance floor for a shameless Scot making an absolute giddy fool of himself while lip-syncing pop songs alongside a menagerie of puppets (and a couple of scantily-costumed stagehands). Preserved on YouTube for your viewing pleasure, the complete collection of Craig Ferguson's Late Late Show musical numbers:
"Say Hey (I Love You)" [Michael Franti & Spearhead] -
"White Lines" [Duran Duran] -
"Wonderful Night" [Fatboy Slim] -
"Istanbul" [They Might Be Giants] -
"Oops!...I Did It Again" [Britney Spears] -
"MMMBop" [Hanson] -
"In the Navy" [Village People] -
"Fireball" [Don Spencer] -
"I'm Yours" [Jason Mraz] -
"The Lonely Goatherd" [The Sound of Music] -
"She Taught Me How To Yodel" [ Frank Ifield] -
"Fire!" [Arthur Brown] -
"Monster Mash" [Boris Pickett] -
"Over At the Frankenstein Place" [Rocky Horror Picture Show] -
"I Melt with You" [Modern English] -
"Addicted to Love" [Robert Palmer] -
"Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" [Trace Adkins] -
"Ça Plane Pour Moi" [Plastic Bertrand] -
"Scottish Rite Temple Stomp" [Ninian Hawick] -
"Look Out, There's a Monster Coming" [Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band] -
"Chant of the Wanderer" [Sons of the Pioneers] -
"Take Your Tongue Out of My Mouth" [Jeff Daniels] -
"You've Got a Friend" [James Taylor] -
"Dracula's Lament" [Jason Segel] -
"Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" -
The lost "Dr. Who" cold open -
The show's full theme song, "Tomorrow's Just Your Future Yesterday" -
The spectacular farewell number: "Bang Your Drum" [Dead Man Fall] [more inside]
Just a story about somebody doing something nice.
Her dad died. So her favorite NFL star took her to the father-daughter dance. Philadelphia Eagles player Anthony Harris flew across the country to escort his 11-year-old fan to the event. (Washington Post link, archive link here.)
Hier soir c'était une bonne soirée!
Twelve years ago, to celebrate their initiation week, 172 communications students at the University of Quebec at Montreal decided to put on a show. After weeks of preparation, the costumed and prop-wielding crowd enacted an exuberant, complex, and flawlessly-choreographed performance of the Black Eyed Peas song "I Gotta Feeling" that sprawled through the campus's multi-story Judith Jasmin Pavilion... and they did it all in one continuous take (on their second try). A look behind the scenes. A decade later, a new student body recreated the spectacle with a new song. It was the capstone on a long-running fad called lipdubbing -- a video phenomenon where a single camera moves through a crowd of highly coordinated lip-syncers in a single seamless take, with the original recording dubbed over the finished product. [more inside]
Kid's Got a Point
Three (four?) Pinocchio movies are coming out this year. Let's look to Russia for some alternatives, hm? All live-action unless otherwise noted:
The Golden Key (1939) (English subtitles; click the CC button)
The Adventures of Buratino (1959) (as Pinocchio and the Golden Key, the 1995 English dub of the Soyuzmultfilm animation, starring Bill Murray) (original undubbed version)
The Adventures of Buratino, first half, second half (1975) (English subtitles)
Buratino, first half, second half (2009) (untranslated) [more inside]
The Golden Key (1939) (English subtitles; click the CC button)
The Adventures of Buratino (1959) (as Pinocchio and the Golden Key, the 1995 English dub of the Soyuzmultfilm animation, starring Bill Murray) (original undubbed version)
The Adventures of Buratino, first half, second half (1975) (English subtitles)
Buratino, first half, second half (2009) (untranslated) [more inside]
Et si on célébrait ceux qui ne célèbrent pas
Stromae is back, raising a glass to "the conquerors of the worst work hours" with Santé. [more inside]
Why is Kim Kitsuragi so cool?
$40 flashlight-sized loudspeaker disrupter from China claimed
In today's news, China's dancing grannies: 'stun gun' claims to solve square dancing dilemma by sabotaging the music. A month ago, the same source reported China considers legal changes to curb noise pollution from the country's notorious dancing grannies. But that isn't the news -- back in 2017, CNN reported that Beijing gets tough on dancing grannies. No, it's this small device which can allegedly disable a loud-speaker at a distance. I've wanted one of these in my car forever, but I'm skeptical of its efficacy. Details from Business Insider: This is the $40 speaker-silencing gadget people are using to shut down China's crowds of dancing grandmas. [more inside]
I'll paint you mornings of gold, I'll spin you Valentine evenings
The Labyrinth (of Jareth) Masquerade Ball is an annual dance and narrative theatrical event, based in Los Angeles and inspired by the As The World Falls Down sequence from Jim Henson's Labyrinth (Fanfare). Photo galleries of attendees' elaborate costumes from the last seven years: '13 '14 '15 '16 '17 '18 '19. (The ball is planned to return in 2022 after two years of health and safety concerns.) An article at Cosplay Culture goes into more detail about the ball's evolving storyline and how much work goes into it each year.
The Jewish folk song everyone in Japan knows
Noah Oskow discusses the complicated international history of the folk song Mayim Mayim. (SL Youtube)