Showing posts with label tap dancing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tap dancing. Show all posts

Friday, June 1, 2018

The return of the typewriter - on a big scale





Ruby Keeler was never my favorite 1930s dance star. In fact, I can think of few other dancers who are less nimble on their feet, or less charismatic. But for some reason, audiences just took to her. She had a kind of calf-eyed sweetness. Plus she was married to Al Jolson, which had to count for something. 

I once read (in that vast repository  of knowledge we call "somewhere") that the reason Keeler couldn't tap dance is that she wasn't a tap dancer. She was a buck dancer, as in "buck and wing", a style that has some things in common with clog dancing. I've seen aboriginal buck dancing competitions, and have noticed that buck shades into jigging, as in the traditional Metis Red River jig. 

Is that what she was doing? Maybe Ruby was just misunderstood.





I don't know if this is a Busby Berkeley number or not - I'll have to look it up - but the hokiness, the use of objects on a giant scale seems to suggest it. It appealed to me because I "read somewhere" that typewriters are coming back. It seemed like an absurd idea at first, but then I thought about it. There is one huge advantage: they simply can't be hacked. The documents they produce can be destroyed - I mean, really, truly and forever - reduced to a pile of ashes in seconds. Remember that "eat the note!" thing  that spies used to do? 

If the hacking problem continues to grow at its present rate, by the year 2050 we'll all be using Olivetti portables with reversible ribbons. Not Selectrics, not that one with the ball that flies around - those are just too advanced, and some electric typewriters even have basic computers in them. No. We'll have to use manuals, and pound the hell out of the keys again, rip out/crumple up the sheets of paper and throw them across the room into the wastebasket. As a matter of fact, I think the stress levels in contemporary society are entirely due to the extinction of this ritual. That, and a lot of other things.




Sunday, December 18, 2016

Rockin' with Santa





Caitlin is out front at the start, then on the left side from 0:26 to 0:52. After that, you can follow her easily because she is the BEST DAMN DANCER UP THERE!


Saturday, December 17, 2016

Tappin' with Santa










Caitlin, amazing, at the Christmas dance recital (on the right side in the first two shots). Keeps tugging at me, because of course I remember her getting born, and everything after that. Now that she's officially a teenager, Grandma's not cool any more - not that she ever was! - so the unpopularity which dogged me all my life, and which I had seemingly beaten for a while, has caught up with me again. It was ever thus; I must get used to it. 

Meantime, she just killed it! She kicked ass, though tap was not always her strong suit. The founder of the dance company, the legendary Miss Charmaine, tactfully asked her if they could work together individually for a while, and "something" happened - she just caught fire. Now she wants to move on to hiphop (or hip-hop or hip hop or however you spell it). I've seen her do hiphop, and she's great, a natural. It's a much harder form of dance than you would think, with a ton of choreography. One must be both loose and precise. Oh never mind, she'll figure it out. Way to go, Caitlin!




My congratulatory PicMix glitz animation for Caitlin.


Sunday, June 28, 2015

Those dancing feet: Caitlin aces it!




Flowers in her arms, stars in her eyes! Caitlin triumphs once again at her year-end dance recital, but with a difference. She really worked hard this year and had some private coaching from the owner of the dance company, an eccentric English lady in her 60s who still dances up a storm. Caitlin displayed a dramatic leap in skills and focus. It all came together for her. Tap is especially difficult to master, but she blew us away this time with her precision and exuberance. This was a good old-fashioned 1930s-style number a la Busby Berkeley, my favorite kind of tap.




Her other number was a hilarious thing from Legally Blonde called Omigod You Guys!. The thing is, you guys, my kids were (and are) incredible athletes, smart, funny, caring people, everything you could ever ask for. But they weren't into the arts. At all. This next generation overflows with creativity in dance and music, and Caitlin has her own YouTube craft/cooking show. Caitlin also aced her clarinet solo, Over the Rainbow, at her band recital, and Erica's choir has been invited to sing at various cultural events. What can I say? Sometimes you just have to wait it out.


Monday, June 4, 2012

Dancing Queens



They may look a bit like they've been in a production of The Mikado, but guess again - these little girls, Gunnings of my Gunnings, have just performed in a dance extravaganza in which each of them had two numbers in different genres.

Erica does not need those eyelashes. Already she creates a breeze when she blinks, but it was all part of the costume.




Grandma is proud!




OK, it may look like Lauren is about to swat her sister with her congratulatory flowers. But she behaved herself, and took her bows gracefully. Both girls did exceptionally well, excelling (of course!) at tap, acro (believe me, you couldn't do this) and ballet.

Try to imagine a four-year-old girl tap-dancing to Jailhouse Rock and you'll get the idea. The "awwwwwwwww" factor was very high throughout. This isn't high school gym stuff, but a real dance school that performs in a real theatre. Missed steps and the odd slip are all part of the path to professionalism, and a lesson in one of life's most crucial skills: getting back up again and carrying on.




Mummy is proud. Mummy is also tired, having supervised much of the performing, organizing the delightful chaos of little bunheads in tutus darting all over the place backstage.

Unfortunately I was not able to get shots of the girls in their various costumes because cameras aren't allowed in the theatre. (Can you imagine what the performance would be like with hordes of parents and grandparents holding up their phones and clicking away so nobody could see anything?) In spite of the attempt to keep the view clear, many an elderly person was heard to say, "Is that her? Is that her? No? Which one is her, then?"

Eventually we'll get to see the whole show on a professional video and experience the "awwwwwwww" all over again.



Mummy is proud, Daddy is proud, two little girls have danced their hearts out. My heart has wings!



http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html