The Movies And Ballroom Dancing

Think dancing and you think Hollywood. Whatever kind of dancing you can think of, whether it is the gliding slow dances or the fast tap dances or the modern break dancing, the silver screen has it all. Not only that, it has immortalized both the dance and the dancers in certain movies.

Sometimes, the dance is just a part of the movie. Sometimes, it is the whole movie. Look at all the old Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies. It was the dance and the song that was the movie. The story line was present just to string the dance and song sequences together. What you remember are the flawless movements and the steps that never put a wrong foot anywhere. Ginger Rogers should probably have been even more feted considering she did all the steps in the highest of heels and backwards at that!

In the great epic movies like Gone With The Wind, even with such a powerful story you remember the great ballroom dance scene when Rhett makes a bid to dance with Scarlett. Then of course, we have movies like the Richard Gere-Jennifer Lopez starrer Shall We Dance, or the original Japanese version by the same name, where a simple guy learns to dance and prepares for the dancing competition.

There is also the wonderful movie Dance With Me, the story of Rafael, a young Cuban boy who comes to America and becomes a great dancer. The reason the ballroom dancers here look so authentic is because they used actual ballroom competition dancers in the movie. Another hit which received a standing ovation at the Cannes Festival was Strictly Ballroom where a professional dancer and an amateur pair up to enter a competition and all the comedy that follows.

So many movies over the years have had dancing sequences. Look at the old movies like West Side Story and The Little Colonel with Bojangles and Shirley Temple. And who can forget Dorothy dancing her way through The Wizard of Oz? Or the dances in The Sound of Music or Mary Poppins or My Fair Lady? Although the dance sequences in these movies did not always include ballroom dancing, the choreography certainly incorporated aspects of ballroom dance steps. And later, the dances grew more erotic like in Flashdance and Dirty Dancing. Today, you even have animated characters doing a great jig! From The Jungle Book to the Shrek series, dance has become part and parcel of most animated movies.

It's always great to watch ballroom dancing. The great thing about the movies is that they have preserved the different dances or the different ways of doing certain dancing on celluloid so people can watch and enjoy them for years to come.

 

Superb choreography stars in Broadway shows

"Come and meet those dancing feet," warbled the cast of "42nd Street." But dance fans have been doing that for decades, experiencing the high-bounding energy that drove Broadway musicals in production numbers, ballets and featured solos.

Rockwell Airtime prepares for national skydiving competition

OGDEN -- With the earth below them, they'll be drifting, falling and floating weightless with finesse -- because falling doesn't quite describe what Rockwell Airtime, a Vertical Formation Skydiving team from Ogden, does when they jump from the plane. It's more of a fast-paced fluid choreography of flying together. read more

GENERAL MUSIC INDUSTRY: Rap and Hip-Hop, Now Accented with Jazz

When fans attend a performance by the Chicago rap stars Common or Kanye West (or, for that matter, the hip-hop princess BeyoncA(C) or the neo-soul crooner Maxwell), they expect certain things: powerful choreography, glitzy peripherals like lights and props and the headliner on video screens in gigantic detail...

Shoba Sharma finds themes, then matches moves to music

Creating three dances corresponding to the San Diego Museum of Art’s Temple, Palace and Mosque galleries involved far more than just choreographing steps. In fact, doing the choreography was her easiest task, says Shoba Sharma, whose Naatya company is co-presenting next Sunday’s concert with the museum.

I saw suicide as only way out of life of hell in cellar: Kampusch

Natascha Kampusch, the Austrian girl imprisoned for eight years and systematically tortured after being kidnapped at the age of 10, has revealed shocking details of her ordeal for the first time.In her book, 3096 Days, she tells...