Tag: Shall We Dance Friday

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12/1/23 O&A SHALL WE DANCE FRIDAY- WORLD AIDS DAY: Lar Lubovitch- Duet from Concerto Six Twenty-Two

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Shall We Dance

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Duet from Concerto Six Twenty-Two is set to Concerto in A for Clarinet and Orchestra, K. 622 by  Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Choreographer Lar Lubovitch premiered this work on his company, the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, at the Municipal Theatre in Angers, France on December 12th 1985 on dancers Sylvain Lafortune and Edward Hillyer. The work was performed at the first Fire Island Dance Festival, which has become the annual summer fundraising centerpiece for Dancers Responding To AIDS.  Continue reading

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7/3/15 O&A Shall We Dance Friday: The Lake section of Alvin Ailey’s The River- American Ballet Theater with Cynthia Gregory and Marcos Paredes

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The Lake section of Alvin Ailey’s The River featuring music by Duke Ellington, with American Ballet Theater Cynthia Gregory and Marcos Paredes.  The ballet was first performed by American Ballet Theater (ABT) on June 25, 1970 to highly enthusiastic reviews. Continue reading

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9/22/17 O&A Shall We Dance: Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers – Top Hat

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Shall We Dance

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Top Hat was the most successful picture of Astaire and Rogers’ partnership (and Astaire’s second most successful picture after Easter Parade), achieving second place in worldwide box-office receipts for 1935. While some dance critics maintain that Swing Time contained a finer set of dances, Top Hat remains, to this day, the partnership’s best-known work. Continue reading

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Litefeet: Sound of the Subway’ Is a Documentary on New York’s Underground Music and Dance

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Shall We Dance

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Litefeet is a rising music genre and style of dance that has become increasingly popular within the New York subway scene.  The genre is highlighted by 100-BPM tracks as well as an acrobatic take on old school b-boy moves and pop-locking. Due to the energetic nature of the music and the moves, police have begun cracking down on the scene, leaving artists sometimes struggling to cope. Continue reading

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6/5/15 O&A Shall We Dance- A Tribute To Dudley Williams: A Song For You (1986)

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In 1972, Alvin Ailey created the elegiac solo Love Songs for dancer Dudley Williams. The  sixteen minute solo, composed in three sections includes A Song for You by Donny Hathaway; Poppies by Nina Simone; and He Ain’t Heavy, He’s my Brother by Donny Hathaway. Many  thought of the work as the male equivalent of the female solo Cry (1971). Continue reading

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5/28/2015 Shall We Dance Friday: NextLevel Squad

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Next Level Squad, a Brooklyn-based group of élite dancers who specialize in Bone Breaking.  The dance style has roots, as a technique, in flexing; but in recent years it has flourished as its own distinct dance form. Next Level Squad has not only brought Bone Breaking to the attention of the urban public, it has gained an international following. Another art-form “Made In America”. Continue reading

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5/28/15 O&A Throwback Thursday: Minnie Riperton

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Minnie Riperton, singer-songwriter best known for her 1975 single Lovin’ You.  She was one of the first celebrities to go public with her breast cancer diagnosis, but did not disclose she was terminally ill. In 1977, she became a spokesperson for the American Cancer Society.  She received the American Cancer Society’s Courage Award in 1978, which was presented to her at the White House by President Jimmy Carter.  She was married to songwriter and music producer Richard Rudolph from 1972 until her death in 1979. They had two children: music engineer Marc Rudolph and actress/comedienne Maya Rudolph. She died at age 31 on July 12, 1979. Continue reading

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5/22/15 O&A Shall We Dance Friday: Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux – Patricia McBride and Mikhail Baryshnikov

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Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux with Patricia McBride and Mikhail Baryshnikov was recorded in 1979. George Balanchine acquired the rights to the music in 1953 and he used it to devise a party piece for a principal couple, amending the choreography each time to suit each pair of dancers. You have to admire Patricia McBride’s diamond-edged footwork including entrechats skimmed millimetres from the floor, or wonder how Baryshnikov’s twelfth consecutive double cabriole can look as easy and elegant as the first.  Continue reading

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Shall We Dance Friday: Sophisticated Ladies- Hinton Battle, Phyllis Hyman, Greg Burge and Paula Kelly

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Sophisticated Ladies starring Gregory Hines, Hinton Battle, Phyllis Hyman, Greg Burge and Paula Kelly is a musical revue based on the music of Duke Ellington. The musical opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on March 1, 1981 and closed on January 2, 1983 after 767 performances and fifteen previews.  Continue reading