“You know that dream you have where you’re flying? That’s what dance is like for me” Marguerite Derricks
If you’re not familiar with Marguerite Derricks, she is a super fab choreographer who has won three Emmys and choreographed for many movies including Striptease, 10 Things I Hate About You, Donnie Darko, Little Miss Sunshine (can’t forget Abigail Breslin doing those raunchy moves), Spider Man 2, and the penultimate Austin Powers Trilogy.
This lady is a master with seamlessly integrating dance into movies that are neither musicals or strictly dance movies. My favorite is her joy-inducing choreography to the infectious “Soul Bossa Nova” by the Big Q, Quincy Jones, for the Austin Powers movies. Another interesting tidbit–”Soul Bossa Nova” wasn’t written FOR Austin Powers, but was first recorded by Quincy and his band back in 1962. Amazing, doesn’t it seem like that song was just made for Austin?
First, the original:
And the third movie, my favorite:
Marguerite and Mike Meyers really come together in a fantastic symphony of creative choreography and a multi-talented character. There is no denying the fun appeal of snaggle-toothed, spectacled Austin in these numbers.
Today I needed a little injection of beauty into my world. There’s no better excuse to share a Dance Quote from lovely Isadora Duncan:
“The dancer’s body is simply the luminous manifestation of the soul.
The true dance is an expression of serenity;
it is controlled by the profound rhythm of inner emotion.
Emotion does not reach the moment of frenzy out of a spurt of action;
it broods first, it sleeps like the life in the seed,
and it unfolds with a gentle slowness.
The Greeks understood the continuing beauty of a movement
that mounted, that spread, that ended with a promise of rebirth.” Isadora Duncan
To accompany the poetry (that’s always what her quotes sound like to me), I found a fantastic video of the Isadora Duncan Dance Group performing in Bologna in 1997. These are just snippets, but you get to see choreographed pieces from Isadora herself, including “The Butterfly”, “The Furies” and “The Revolutionary”.
I attempted to find the group’s website to no avail (even tried to find an archived page). If you know where this group’s webpage has gone to, let me know!
“To dance, put your hand on your heart and listen to the sound of your soul.” Eugene Louis “Luigi” Facciuto
Luigi Facciuto is a true father of modern Jazz dance (he is even sometimes referred to as “father jazz”). He was a very accomplished dancer when he moved to Los Angeles in the 1950′s to further his career. Instead, he became paralyzed after a serious car accident. He recovered enough to begin working at the dance bar again, but when he would leave the bar and attempt to dance out on the floor, his injuries did not enable him to have the same balance and coordination that he had before the accident.
But that did not stop him. He did so well at the bar, he thought “well, I’ll just take the bar out on to the floor with me!” And he created the very first formal Jazz technique. It’s a technique that I’ve been schooled in for the past 10 years, and if you’ve ever heard a teacher tell you to “push down to go up,” then you’ve used the Luigi technique. So, when you go up on your toes (or releve), you don’t just use your calf muscles to pop up. You “pull up” from the top of your head and “push down” within the space around you. This is the biggest part of the Luigi technique, the opposition. You “pull away left to go right” and so on. It’s an excellent technique and really allows for breath and reach in dance steps.
I love the quote from him above. He overcame the very worst kind of obstacles for a dancer and artist, and he certainly knows the sound of his soul. Because it is the soul of a dancer. Thanks for the technique Luigi. And the love of dance.
“The one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing.” The Godfather of Soul, Mr. James Brown
You only have to listen to him sing or watch him dance for a minute to understand why he held his title and held it nobly. These days it seems like we could all use a little dance in our lives. To celebrate, to help, to heal, to transport us, to elevate us, or to simply have fun. Amen Godfather.
There is a famous dance quote about Ginger Rogers that goes “Sure, he was great but don’t forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did…backwards and in high heels.”
The “he” of course, refers to Mr. Fred Astaire (see yesterday’s dance quote post). And Ginger was his steadfast and finest dance partner for 10 films, and continued on without him to win a Best Actress Oscar for Kitty Foyle in 1940.
She gave the Fred and Ginger pairing femininity, grace, beauty and even more talent to make a blockbuster duo. Katherine Hepburn was quoted saying “Fred gave Ginger class, and Ginger gave Fred Sex.” Not only was she a class A dancer, she was also a great dramatic and comedic actress.
Of his beloved partner, Fred said “She had guts.” And I love that. Here’s to miss Ginger.
