Biography of a famous jazz dancer

She had directed her self-established dance company for decades. She is well-known for her several creations, the most well-known of which is her Dunham techniquewhich is a series of movements and exercises on the basis of classic African Diaspora dances. Katherine formed the first black dance company in the United States and opened her dance school in NYC in Her dance school was a well-known black dancing center that welcomed everyone.

Many actors wanted to learn from Katherine and participate in one of the most reputable schools in America at the time. Gregory Peck, Shirley Maclaine, and many other actors and celebrities were her students. Ashley Wallen is a famous Australian jazz dancer. At the age of 24, he left his homeland to find his path in London with the intention to stay in the city for 6 months.

Matt Mattox is a jazz and ballet dancer from the United States. He developed his own approach to jazz dance based on his ballet training. His jazz instruction was structured similarly to a ballet class. His own meticulous and refined style reflects the postures, shapes, and attributes he learned at the barre. National Tap Dance Day is also celebrated on his birthday, i.

Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Hall of Fame in Best known for : Popularizing dances such as the glide, the castle walk, the castle polka, the hesitation waltz, the tango, the maxixe, and the bunny hug. Vernon and Irene Castle were a husband-and-wife team of ballroom dancers and dance teachers. They appeared in many silent films in the early 20th century.

They are known for reviving the popularity of modern dancing. They also popularized ragtime, jazz rhythms, and African American music for dance. Their legacy as lovers and jazz dancers lives on as some of the most famous jazz dancers of all time. The Nicholas Brothers were a duo of brothers, Fayard and Harold. They are considered to be the greatest tap dancers of all time.

Their work in Stormy Weather is known to be one of the greatest dance routines ever captured on film. They became a part of the jazz circuit during the Harlem Renaissance. As teachers-in-residence at Harvard University, they taught master classes in tap dance. Their impact on the industry is still relevant, and so they are considered some of the most famous jazz dancers of all time.

The influence of Lester Horton is seen in the works of many later dancers, jazz and otherwise. Known as the Matriarch of Black Dance, Katherine Dunham - founded the first major black modern dance company in America. Integrating the syncopated rhythms of Haiti, Cuba, Brazil and the Caribbean into American dance, she is credited with inventing the technique of body isolationism and incorporating it into her dance style.

Katherine Dunham's influence and dance technique had a huge impact on the world of jazz dance. Today almost all jazz dancers use her technique in their dance. A dancer before the Civil Rights movement, Dunham performed for segregated audiences at the beginning of her career. The video below shares an interview in which Dunham discusses her efforts to de-segregate audiences during her reign as a top American dancer.

The s saw jazz dance evolve into what we know today as modern jazz dance. This transition was the result of gradual changes in the style of Broadway choreographers. Famous jazz dancers from this era include:.

Biography of a famous jazz dancer: Jack Cole was an American

As the famous dancers of this era taught their skills to younger generations, the world of jazz dance continued to evolve. There are many excellent jazz dancers and famous choreographers of today that will be remembered for their contributions in years to come. These include:. In Swing Impressions of an East Indian Play Dance Cole used the mudras and other features of the classical Indian lexicon to create intricate routines, which he set to big band swing arrangements to create a style the press called "Hindu Swing".

They adapted the rumba to Cole Porter 's Begin the Beguine in West Indian Impressions while using the characteristic arched stance and rapid-tapping heels of flamenco dance in Babalu. After moving to Hollywood in the early s, Cole returned to nightclubs at the end of the decade when a studio strike left him free to take his troupe of Columbia Pictures dancers, which included Florence Lessing, Rod Alexander, Carol HaneyBuzz Millerand Gwen Verdonto Chez Paree in Chicago in Several months later the group, now known as "Jack Cole and His Company", played the Latin Quarter in New York City, offering a suite of East Indian dances, a jitterbug -inspired dance to Benny Goodman 's Sing, Sing, Singfollowed by a jazz arrangement for six dancers, and ending with a suite of Latin American dances to a Latin-swing arrangement.

The mix of styles went beyond the eclectic list of dances: Cole's choreography for Sing, Sing, Sing, for example, had its roots in African-American vernacular dance, but was also "informed by East Indian, Latin American, and Caribbean musical traditions and dance forms, as well as by the modern American dance traditions of Denishawn and Humphrey-Weidman ".

Cole had begun his Broadway career as a performer in in the two-act ballet, The Dream of Sganarellewhich Humphrey and Weidman choreographed and danced in. Cole returned to New York and Broadway after his film career ended in His first two productions, Donnybrook! Cole first came to Los Angeles in when offered a nightclub gig at Ciro's. His performance was cut, however, as he showed "a little bit too much pelvis and too much bare chest—just too much male sensuality" for the studio's taste.

Cole continued to push the boundaries of what the censors would allow throughout his career in Hollywood. Censors also insisted on the removal of some of the lyrics and dance moves from the Cole Porter number "Ladies in Waiting" in Les Girlswhich nonetheless remains quite racy, even in redacted form. Cole found Hollywood's approach to shooting dance sequences frustrating.

Studios at that time typically regarded choreography, set design and costuming as distinct operations, often coming together for the first time on the first day of filming. Cole, by contrast, sought control over the design of the sets and his dancers' outfits.

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He also chafed at the often static camera setups used to film dance numbers. In his Ladies in Waiting number the point of view jumped from the audience's view of the dancers to the dancers' view of the audience—with the stage lights blinding the dancers, as they often did—then jumped again to backstage. He built up their strong, self-aware and self-confident personas through his choreography.

Cole led the supremely talented Hayworth to give a tour de force performance in " Put the Blame on Mame " in Gilda. As Cole wrote, years later, "I must say of all the things I ever did for movies, that's one of the few I can really look at on the screen right now and say: If you want to see a beautiful, erotic woman, this is it.

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It still remains first class, it could be done right now. Monroe's performance established her persona in her later musical and comedy roles. Although Monroe was acquiring a reputation for being difficult and undisciplined, she responded positively to Cole's controlling style on this shoot and insisted on language in her next contract with 20th Century-Fox that required that he be hired to choreograph her in any movie in which she was called on to dance.

Their last film, Let's Make Lovewhich was also Monroe's last musical comedy role, was less harmonious, as Monroe was chronically late for rehearsals, if she appeared at all, and less focused.

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Cole returned once more to Broadway. Cole brought his dance groups to television throughout the s, appearing in Bob Hope specials as well as The Perry Como Show —50 and —59 seasons and Sid Caesar 's Your Show of Shows — When Cole started work at Columbia Pictures inhe assembled his own company of dancers whom he trained in the style he sometimes called "jazz-ethnic-ballet" through daily classes on the Columbia lot.

Cole continued teaching for the rest of his life, both in his role as choreographer in nightclubs and on Broadway and in Hollywood, and later at Jacob's Pillow and at the University of California, Los Angeleswhere he had been teaching for two years before his death in Cole was a perfectionist, who demanded the same of his students and those he was working with.

As Chita Rivera recalled "He dictated every last detail of how he wanted you to twist an arm or the exact shape you needed with your hands. I remember once he worked with us for hours on how a particular handclap should sound. Cole could also be abusive; as he told Dance Magazine in"Sometimes you have to slap them. Sometimes you have to kiss them.

Even so, he acquired a loyal following of students and collaborators. Cole virtually invented the idiom of American show dancing known as "theatrical jazz dance. Cole-style dancing is acrobatic and angular, using small groups of dancers rather than a large company; it is closer to the glittering nightclub floor show than to the ballet stage. Cole's dancing was often described as "animalistic" or "cat-like", referring to the smooth transition of weight from foot to foot, while maintaining his torso erect.

Cole generally insisted that dancers maintain a cool, cold facial expression, but demanded that they nonetheless invest every movement with meaning and emotion:. I just try to touch the dancer at the center of his emotion.