Rachel’s blog @ View Rachel @ Juilliard Dance | Published: May 1, 2012 Category: historyBy Rachel Straus When approached to choreograph the 1954 film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Michael Kidd read the screenplay about woodsmen looking for wives and thought, “Surely, those guys would never dance.” His solution was to use a barn-raising competition as a jumping-off point for a number in which the brothers fought for the […] Published: October 1, 2011 Category: historyBy Rachel Straus 1. How did Bennett model himself after Jerome Robbins? 2. What was the first Broadway show Bennett saw at age 11? 3. _______ was Bennett’s longtime collaborator. 4. Name a few Broadway shows Bennett directed and/or choreographed? 5. Who organized the 1974 tape sessions that later developed into A Chorus Line? 6. […] Published: October 1, 2011 Category: historyBy Rachel Straus A dancer’s ornamentally unfurling arms and catlike spine develop under a spotlight. Alone in a dark, empty space, she watches her haloed dancing figure in a mirrored triptych, whose three panels resemble a church altar painting. In this iconic “Music and the Mirror” number of A Chorus Line, director Michael Bennett […] Published: January 1, 2008 Category: historyBy Rachel Straus Layouts. Forced-arch, turned-in pirouettes. Hip and shoulder isolations. The hallmarks of classical jazz dance are easy to recognize, but do you know where these moves actually came from? Jazz came into its own as a style after World War I, but the foundations of jazz dance and music go back much further […] Published: April 11, 2003 Category: reviewBy Rachel Straus Western Europe and the Midwest now have more in common, thanks to Jim Vincent, the new artistic director of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, which performed Saturday at Purchase College’s Performing Arts Center. Since taking the helm of the 25-year-old company in 2000, American-born Vincent – who speaks four languages, got his dancing […] |