Stage, film, and television dancer, director, and choreographer, was born Robert Louis Fosse in

Bob Fosse still lives as the most prominent figure in the field of jazz dance. Fosse was an artist, his dances were a direct reflection of him: provocative, creative, motivated, driven, tough, ruthless, and full of humor. His choreography was sexual, highly demanding of even the most trained and skilled dancers, full of humor and at other times bleak cynicism. Throughout his works, Fosse tackled the full spectrum of human emotions. As an artist, Fosse was known for his uncompromising modern style. It grew to be unmistakable with his sexually suggestive forward hip-thrusts; the vaudevillian humor of hunched shoulders and turned-in feet; and the mime-like articulation of hands. It was through this unique voice and innovative style that Fosse

The Ziegfeld Follies were a group of women who would dance during Ziegfeld’s broadway shows. In the beginning, in order to produce them, Ziegfeld would spend $13000 on them and by the end it would cost him $300000. The Follies were a huge success on Broadway and gave Ziegfeld his spot in the Broadway history books. Another thing he in order to cement his fame, was revitalize the Broadway show, ShowBoat. During the casting of the show, Ziegfeld made the controversial choice at the time which was to cast a black actor in a leading role. Before this, white actors would apply “black face” on them to look like a black person. Despite this choice, the revival was a huge success and Ziegfeld made the show into one of the best and iconic Broadway shows of all

Alvin Ailey was an accomplished dancer and choreographer whose African-American heritage influenced his works in the 20th century. His successful dance career has gained international recognition and acclaim thus rendering a significant legacy. Ailey’s background as a dancer and choreographer had many strong influences from social, cultural, economic and political aspects during his early life. His African-American heritage has greatly influenced his works. Alvin was the founder of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (1958-), galvanized and stabilized an African American presence in theatrical dance. An outstanding performer, choreographer, company director, and mentor to scores of dance artists, Ailey oversaw the growth of his small, pick-up group of seven dancers into a large, carefully managed, internationally-renowned enterprise including several ensembles of dancers and a thriving school in New York City housed in the largest building devoted to dance in the United States. Along the way, Ailey changed the landscape of modern dance by developing new audiences for its performance through a consistent combination of exceptional artistry and wellcoordinated community outreach programs. In all, Ailey invigorated the art of dance with his distinctive creative imagination, his “blood memories” of cultural formations he witnessed as a child-- including the jook joint and the black church --and the strong survivalist ethic he learned as an African American man born in the

“I was a Dancer” is a rich, expansive, spirited memoire on the Jacques d’Amboise life. It all started when he was 8 years old at the school of American ballet. At twelve he was asked to be a dancer and perform with Ballet Society. Three years later he joined the New York City ballet and made his European debut at London’s Covent Garden’s. Before all this he writes about his childhood, he was born Joseph Ahearn in 1934 in Dedham Massachusetts. His mother considered as the boss, she moves her family to New York City’s Washington Heights, Making her son and daughter enter Ballet classes, she was able to pay those classes by making hates and selling them in the streets corner, she also changed their last names to her middle name, she believed

As ballets were about telling stories or formulating movements, modern dance broke the rules and started to focus more on individual expressions. Loie Fuller (1862 – 1928), Doris Humphrey (1895-1958), and Ruth St. Denis (1877-1968) were pioneering women who took a stand and used their dance performance to speak up for women’s rights. Using dance, they significantly contributed to the Feminist movement in which they embraced self-expression and creativity so that women could be acknowledged in the dance field and in the society as a whole. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, they found for women’s rights by “taking dance to a new form, and creating dances to speak directly and intimately to the viewer” (Au 89). Loie Fuller, Doris Humphrey, and Ruth St. Denis demonstrated the transformation of dance with their innovation of costumes and stage lighting, incorporation of foreign cultures into performance, and creation of natural movements and individual expression that rejected the formal structures of ballet to deform a woman’s body, allowing women to be free from stereotype of a traditional woman.

The stage performance of Chicago offered a spectacle that I expected before attending the show. I knew there was going to be scantly clad girls with dark makeup and saucy attitudes. The performers brought to life all that was raunchy in the entertainment business during the roaring twenties. The lifestyle in Chicago featured jazz, booze, sex and crime. More importantly, Chicago had beautiful, young women with the dream of having their own Vaudeville act. The two main female characters, Velma and Roxy were two such women hoping to capture the public's attention. The composition of the show is a metaphoric integration of Vaudeville type acts amongst the book scenes and diegetic musical numbers.

Broadway Tours are a gift to the Great White Way lovers that, unfortunately, don’t live in traveling distance of New York City. With me being one of those people, hear that the popular musical of Kinky Boots was coming to the Music Hall I knew I had to see it. This musical has had many people talking about it because of the music and lyrics done by the legendary Cyndi Lauper. With a unique plot, I didn’t know exactly what to expect. From the opening number about shoes, I knew Lauper’s music deserved all the recognition it has received. How Harvey Fierstein wrote such an emotionally, moving story over a shoe factory I will never be able to figure out but every element of this show added to me almost in tears during the finale. This story follows

He started his career in the Cleveland Play House Curtain Pullers children's theatre program in the early 1940s and started to appear in early productions such as Grandmother Sly Boots, Jack Of Tarts, and a lead role in a winning production called On Borrowed Time. In 1966 he originated the role of the Master Of Ceremonies in the broadway musical called Cabaret which he won a tony

Betty Marie saw herself as just a “typical normal Indian girl”. Born in 1925, she grew up at an Osage reservation in Oklahoma. She was a shy introvert, but something helped her get out of her shell. When she was four, she started to take Ballet lessons from a local instructor. She became a local hit, and preformed at various events, such as fairs and rodeos. Later, she realized that despite her talent, she could still improve.

Both Gold Diggers of 1933 (Busby Berkeley, 1933) and Swing Time (George Stevens, 1936) feature the now-infamous Ginger Rogers in two very different roles. In Gold Diggers, she plays a supporting role as the chorus girl Fay Fortune, whereas in Swing Time, she is the top-billed star playing the show business hopeful Penny Carol aside her perennial film and dance partner, Fred Astaire as show business veteran Lucky Garnett. These two Ginger Rogers roles provide insight into the socioeconomic roles women played in the societal landscape of the 1930s. By analyzing the same actress in two roles, one leading and one supporting, in two film musicals produced three years apart, we can isolate exactly what characteristics were fit for a leading lady at that point in film history. Upon close examination, many of the changes made from the supporting role of Fay to the leading role of Penny can boil down to two overarching themes: sexual repression and heterosexual coupling.

In 1923, baker landed a role in the musical shuffle along as a member of the chorus, and people the comic touch that she brought to the part made her popular with audiences. Looking to parlay these early successes, baker moved to New York and was soon performing in chocolate dandies and, along with Ethel waters, in the floor show of the plantation club, where again she quickly became a crowd favorite. In 1925 at the peak of France obsessed with American jazz and all things exotic, baker traveled to Paris to perform in La Revue Negre at the Theatre des Champs Elysees.she made an immediate impression on french audiences when, with dance partner joe Alex, she performed the “Danse Sauvage,” in which she wore only a feather skirt. However , it was the following year, at the Folies Bergere music hall, one of the most popular of the era, that baker’s career would reach a major turning point. In a performance called La Folie du jour, Baker danced wearing little more than a skirt made of 16 bananas. The show Were wildly popular with Parisian audiences and Baker was soon among the most popular and highest-paid

I began New Mexico School for the Arts afraid of myself. It was a new school, thrust in the chaos of just trying to stay open. I walked into the gym to meet a man with white hair, blue jeans, and a bursting laugh that seemed to settle everyone’s anxiety. Mr. Chavez had embarked on establishing a school where New Mexico’s youth- so often overlooked and disregarded- could learn and master theatrical craft. He had left the large public high school, where the theater bore his own name, to found an opportunity for us. I sit here at my desk writing to you what potentially hundreds, maybe thousands, of people could say. Mr. Chavez changed my life. I say this without melodramatic intent, rather as a statement of fact.

In the early 1900s, legendary dancer and choreographer Ted Shawn and his wife, Ruth St. Denis, bought a farm to establish a setting for training men in dance. Thus, Jacob’s Pillow, America’s first and oldest dance school was born. The school, site of a family farm in the 1700s and a station on the Underground Railroad in the 1800s, has been designated a National Historic Landmark for its “cultural leadership and prominence in American history”. In Pittsfield, nearby as well where, Moby-Dick’s, writer Herman Melville’s home of thirteen years and the place where he penned his most renowned

Robert Louis Fosse Developed his own form of Jazz style in American Broadway and musical theatre throughout the course of the 50’s 60’s and 70’s. He was the choreography behind ‘All that Jazz’, ‘Chicago’ and ‘Sweet charity’. Elements of Fosse’s work can be seen to this day and common characteristics include Soft Boiled Egg cupped hands, the Charleston step, angled joints, the drape and the Fosse walk. For this project, I am studying this unit as a choreographer

Mark Morris managed to become a successful dancer in spite of several obstacles, though his parents were very supportive Morris’ body was atypical for a dancer. By his own description in