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2002 - Fred Astaire (1899-1987) was the American tap dancer extraordinaire; Frederick Austerlitz was
born May 10, 1899 in Omaha, Nebraska. Astaire and his older sister, Adele, were
brought to New York as children to receive dance training and perform on
vaudeville stages.
They studied with Claude Alvienne and Ned Wayburn, but could
not perform in New York because of the Gerry Society restrictions on child
performers. They toured on the Keith-Orpheum circuit, then returned to New York
as finished specialty dancers to enter Over the Top (1917). They worked together
on Broadway in The Passing Show of 1918, For Goodness Sake (1922), the
Gershwins’ Lady, Be Good (1925) and Funny Face (1927), Smiles (1930), and The
Band Wagon (1931) and many others. The pair was extremely popular in New York,
but their London reputations were even greater. Adele retired following the
close of The Band Wagon, and Fred performed with Claire Luce in the 1932 film
The Gay Divorcee.
For much of his film career, his search for a perfect partner
was a frequent publicity theme. The partnership with Ginger Rogers is film and
dance history, of course. The work with the great tap dancer Eleanor Powell, is
legendary among tap professionals. A stunning choreographer himself, Astaire was
also able to perform brilliantly in dances staged by many others. He danced the
choreography of Dave Gould, who wont he first dance director Oscar for “the
Carioca,” Harry Losse, a concert dancer with Denishawn lineage, Bobby Connolly,
Charles Walters, and ballet choreographers Eugene Loring and Michael Kidd.
Astaire’s dance numbers can be divided roughly into four
categories – exhibition ballroom romances, tap competitions, solos, and solos
with props. The most frequently performed was the first type, danced with each
of his female partners; the dances were based on conventional exhibition
ballroom styles, in turn based on social dance work. They involved a single
format, with the meeting, duet work, breaks apart and pulls together, and a
final symmetrical or tandem series of movements. Among Astaire’s examples in
this style are the famous love duets with Ginger Rogers, such as “Cheek to
Cheek” and “Night and Day,” which are exquisitely beautiful from their openings,
in which one touch from Astaire spins her into his arms, to the finales in which
they simply sit.
Tap challenge numbers were danced with Rogers, as well as with
his other partners. With Rogers and Powell especially, these numbers, based on
minstrel formats, presented an alternating series of tap flurries, each dancer
trying to best the other. In the “Let Yourself Go” number from Follow the Fleet,
the Astaire-Rogers competition is set in a dance hall with “real” inter-couple
competitions. The solos occasionally had a “schtik,” such as the “fireworks
dance” in Holiday Inn, but more frequently were danced alone before a camera.
The solos with props are among his greatest accomplishments.
He could not only dance with anyone, but with anything – the coat tree in Royal
Wedding, the wall in that underrated film, or the drum set in Easter Parade.
It would be difficult to
overestimate Astaire’s influence. He represents tap, theater, and ballroom dance
to much of the world, and perfection in performance to everyone.
Unknown Writer & Tony
Waag
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