Dance Me a Song: Astaire, Balanchine, Kelly, and the American Film Musical

Synopsis

Dance Me A Song Traces The History Of Famous Hollywood Collaborations As The Palimpsest Of Dance, Film, And Musical Techniques Were Developed Over Time. Author Beth Genné Draws On The Most Well-known And Influential Musical Dances Of The First Half Of The Century, From The Fred Astaire And Ginger Rogers' Series In The Thirties (top Hat, Swing Time, Shall We Dance, And Others), Through The Mgm Film Dances Created And Directed By Vincente Minnelli, Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen, And Again Astaire, Whose Career Continued At Mgm In The Forties And Fifties (yolanda And The Thief, The Pirate, On The Town, Singin' In The Rain, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, The Bandwagon). George Balanchine, She Argues, Also Plays An Important Part In This Story, From His Until Now Unrecognized Collaborations With Vernon Duke And Vincente Minnelli To Develop The Jazz Ballet Form On Broadway (the Ziegfeld Follies Of 1936 And His Choreography For On Your Toes, 1936), To The 1939 Film Version Of On Your Toes And The Dance Sequences He Directed With Greg Toland For The Hollywood Movie The Goldwyn Follies (1938). Busby Berkeley, Whose Moving Camera Techniques According To Gene Kelly Broke Down The Proscenium Frame Of The Stage For American Dancers, Forms A Key Part Of The Picture, As Do Early Experimental French Directors Like Rene Clair And European Immigrants To Hollywood Ernst Lubitsch And Rouben Mamoulian. Dance Me A Song Provides Lively And Necessary Scholarship For All Dance Enthusiasts--provided By Publisher. Machine Generated Contents Note: Pt. One From Stage To Screen -- 1. Astaire's Outlaw Style And Its New World Roots -- 2. Astaire's Roots In Ballroom, Ballet, And Other Forms -- 3. Old World Meets New World On Broadway: Balanchivadze And Dukelsky Meet The Gershwins And Rodgers And Hart -- 4. Balanchine In Hollywood: Jazz Ballet For The Camera -- 5. Dancing With The Camera: Introducing Kelly And Donen -- Pt. Two Film-dance Genres -- 6. Song And Dance As Courtship -- 7. Freedom Incarnate: The Dancing Sailor As An Icon Of American Values In World War Ii -- 8. 's Wonderful: Euphoric Street Dances -- 9. Dreaming In Dance: Astaire, Minnelli, Kelly, And Donen -- Pt. Three Making Film Dance -- 10. Making Film Dance: The Through-composed, Through-choreographed Musical -- 11. Legacy. Beth Genné. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 323-330) And Index.