3/17/20 O&A NYC DANCE:  Memphis Jookin Cypher Episode 5 (Gangsta Walk Edition)

Gangsta Walking (often referred to as: G-Walk BuckinTickinJookin, or Choppin) is a street dance that originated in Memphis, Tennessee alongside “Buck” music during the 1990s. The Gangsta Walk is commonly performed to Crunk music due to the particular ‘bounce’ in the beat and the movement the dancers make to keep with it. Though Gangsta Walking has been around for many years, much of the dance is still exclusive to the city and surrounding areas.
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(Repost) 8/4/20 O&A NYC DIVA ALERT! RAINY DAY BONUS: Stormy Weather- Featuring Katherine Dunham And Her Dance Troupe

Stormy Weather is a 1943 film musical produced and released by 20th Century Fox. The movie is considered one of the best Hollywood musicals with an all African-American cast and serve to  showcase of some of the top African-American performers of the time. Continue reading

11/7/21 O&A NYC MORE GOSPEL SUNDAY: Mourner’s Bench- Talley Beatty Choreographer


mourn2Talley Beatty choreographed and performed Mourner’s Bench in 1947. It represents the anguish and loss for former slaves, now free men, killed during the Reconstruction Era at the beginning of the rise of the Klu Klux Klan. Beatty explained to me, “People were murdered by the Klan and at daybreak their relatives would find their bodies in the fields still covered in the morning dew.”

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3/16/23 O&A NYC SHALL WE DANCE FRIDAY- WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH: Excerpt of Banda with Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder (1957)

By Walter Rutledge

Shall We Dance

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Geoffrey Holder’s Banda dance debuted in the 1954 Truman Capote/Harold Arlen musical House Of Flowers. Holder the Baron of The Cemetery (based on the Haitian Loa of Death Baron Samedi) received both a performer and choreographer credit in the program. The Broadway musical takes place somewhere in the West Indies during Mardi Gras weekend. Continue reading

1/25/20 O&A NYC SATURDAY MORNING CONCERT- DANCE: City of Rain by Camille A. Brown

 

City of Rain by choreographer  Camille A. Brown performed by the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University (2015). Continue reading

11/23/20 O&A NYC THROWBACK THURSDAY- DIVA ALERT!: Diana Ross – Muscles

Muscles (1982)  written and produced by Michael Jackson, and performed by Diana Ross.  Continue reading

(REPOST) 9/1/24 O&A NYC DIVO ALERT: Calvin Royal III- Hallelujah 

Hallelujah choreographed and performed by American Ballet Theater principal Calvin Royal III, directed by Andrii Didyk. Continue reading

1/8/20 O&A NYC WILDIN OUT WEDNESDAY: Brian Friedman & Yanis Marshall Heels Choreography- Britney Spears “Breathe On Me”

Brian Friedman’s Class at Millennium Dance Complex in Los Angeles 2014.  Continue reading

3/6/23 O&A NYC CELEBRATING WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH: Deborah Manning in Cry- Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater

Deborah Manning performs Alvin Ailey’s tribute to woman (especially our mothers) Cry (1971).  Continue reading