Hole in the Clouds

Tag: dance

American Weekend

Feb 7, 2011

The cancan line shown here was photographed during a dress rehearsal for this weekend's performance at the Super Bowl University of Montana Foresters' Ball.

Every February, students in the Forestry School at the University of Montana stage a dance with an Old West theme. They spend months preparing: chopping down trees, hauling the logs to campus, building a wild-west town with saloon and jail and dance hall and helicopter launching pad. The helicopter dropped cardboard all over the campus oval, prize pieces of which had Foresters' Ball tickets attached. As always, the event sold out.

dance   University of Montana   Missoula   Foresters' Ball  

Isadorables

Oct 6, 2013

After her two children, Deirdre Craig and Patrick Singer, drowned in 1913 in the aftermath of a car accident in Paris, Isadora Duncan adopted six dancer daughters, the Isadorables. Three of them–Maria-Theresa Duncan, Anna Duncan, and Irma Duncan– nurtured Isadora's dance techniques and instructional philosophy long after she herself was killed in another notorious car accident in 1927.

This photo is believed to date from 1920 or thereabouts, in New York.

dance   Isadora Duncan   dancers   modern dance   circa 1920   (Image credit: Arnold Genthe via Shorpy)  

Flying High

Nov 26, 2013

In 1952, shortly after starrin' and dancin' in Singin' in the Rain and An American in Paris, Gene Kelly posed for a Look magazine photoshoot by jumping over film cans labeled with the titles of all the movies he'd made.

Although he remained active in show business for four more decades, this moment in 1952 may have been something close to the peak of Kelly's career. The screen genre that made him a star–the movie musical with lots of big dance numbers–was already in decline, losing out to television. Kelly had signed a long-term contract with MGM, a studio that was cutting way back on its investment in musicals and wasn't keeping him particularly busy, even though it was also refusing to lend him out for opportunities such as Guys and Dolls.

For what it's worth, the whole "Good Morning" shtick of this blog comes from Singin' in the Rain, in particular from the song and dance that happens when we've talked the whole night through and it's just too late to say good night.

dance   Gene Kelly   celebrity   movies   1952   jump   (Image credit: Maurice Terrell for Look magazine)