Gene Kelly: Highly Talented Dancer

1490 Words3 Pages

Gene Kelly was born on August 23, 1912 in a working class neighborhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was a dancer, actor, director, and choreographer that brought a different approach to the dance and production world. Thus, he was one of five children, including two brothers and two sisters. While he was growing up, instead of playing baseball with the neighborhood friends he decided to take dance lessons due to his moms influence. Kelly attended Peabody High School and continued his education at Pennsylvania State College. However, he studied economics throughout college but finding a job was difficult during that time during the Depression (Krebs). During his college career he taught at a local dance studio to help pay for his education, while performing with his brother Fred, with where they then performed in a theater for children at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1934 (Overview of Gene Kelly). …show more content…

He always had an unusual and imaginative dance routine floating around in his head. “I don’t really know why I clicked, I didn’t want to be a dancer, and I just did it to work my way through college. But I was always an athlete and gymnast, so it came naturally,” stated Kelly. Also stated by Kelly, “In the 1930’s, when I started, Martha Graham was the only dancer doing anything modern but she did it all to classical music. I couldn’t see myself doing Swan Lake every night, and I wanted to develop a truly American Style”

Show More
Related

  • Danny Grossman Major Assignment

    1072 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...’s work. Although dancing Taylor’s choreography, Grossman was allowed the freedom to experiment and this factor allowed him to develop as a performer. Grossman has admitted that he had some fear in dancing in Taylor’s Company; however he has further added that in doing so his fears were gradually diffused and he in fact reached “a sense of peace or calm”.

    Read More

  • Research Paper On Alvin Ailey

    542 Words  | 2 Pages

    Born in Rogers, Texas on January 5, 1931, Alvin Ailey spent his formative years going to Sunday School and participating in The Baptist Young People's Union. At age twelve, he moved to Los Angeles and, on a junior high school class trip to the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, fell in love with concert dance. Ailey began his formal dance training inspired by the performances of the Katherine Dunham Dance Company and the classes with Lester Horton that his friend, Carmen de Lavallade, urged him to take. Horton, the founder of the first racially integrated dance company in the US, was a catalyst for Ailey as the young dancer embarked on his professional career. After Horton's death in 1953, Ailey became the director of the Lester Horton Dance Theater and began to choreograph his own works. In New York, Ailey studied with many outstanding dance artists, including Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Hanya Holm and Karel Shook, and took acting classes with Stella Adler. A versatile performer, Ailey won a number of acting roles while continuing to choreograph and dance professionally. In 1958, Ailey founded his own company, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. During the Company's first decade, Ailey created approximately twenty new ballets, among them Hermit Songs and Reflections in D. These were followed by The River, The Lark Ascending, Love Songs and many others.

    Read More

  • Why Is Jackie Robinson A Hero

    655 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jackie Robinson, born Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born on January 31, 1919 in Cairo, Georgia. He was the youngest of five children and was raised by his single-handed mother Mallie Robinson in poverty. He went to John Muir High School and Pasadena Junior College, where he excelled in football, basketball, track, and baseball. Jackie Robinson won the regions Most Valuable Player in baseball in 1938. Jackie was inspired by his older brother Matthew Robinson to push for his goals, talents and love for sports.

    Read More

  • Johnny Cash and Luke Bryan

    2023 Words  | 5 Pages

    Johnny Cash was born in Kingsland, Arkansas on February 26, 1932 (Enslow 19). He began to take an interest to music when his father bought a radio. His mother loved listening to music and his mother and Johnny would sing songs all throughout the house. Taught by his mother and childhood friend, he learned to play guitar (Enslow 19). Working hard and practicing, he became very good at guitar and singing. However, he grew up through the Great Depression and this was very difficult for him and his family. In Edward Enslow’s “The Man in Black” Johnny Cash states, “We were very poor, and I almost died of starvation as a child.” This quote shows how life was a struggle for Cash in his early life. Facing all the many challenges was difficult for him but he found a way through it. Through his older brother Jack, he was able to cope with his life growing up. Jack was a huge role model to Johnny growing up, he would teach...

    Read More

  • Bob Fosse Dance Techniques

    2530 Words  | 6 Pages

    Bob Fosse was born June 23, 1927, and died September 23, 1987. Born in Chicago USA. (Wikipedia, 2016, para.1) He grew up he had six siblings and had Norwegian and Irish parents. He was an American choreographer in musical theatre as well as a director, film director, screen writer, and actor. He has won the most Tonys ever for his choreography with eight Tony awards. Fosse's choreography changed how society saw dancing on film and stage with his style being nothing like anything anyone had ever seen before. His style was unique and edgy with unusual arm movements, poses, and gesture. "I thank god that I wasn't born perfect." Said Fosse. (Brainy Quote,

    Read More

  • Alvin Ailey's Role In Modern Dance

    1073 Words  | 3 Pages

    Alvin was born during the Great Depression to two working class parents in Rogers, Texas. His father abandoned the family when Alvin was a mere six months old, leaving him and his mother with the struggle of fending for themselves. The inability for Alvin’s mother to find work led to their move to California in 1942, where Alvin was introduced by a classmate to the most influential person that would be the foundation for his future successful career in modern dance, Lester Horton (DeFrantz 1). Alvin was captivated by Lester’s work, which focuses on building a strong body, and made the executive decision to start his dance training in 1949 when he was eighteen years old. Because Lester Horton’s dance company embraced diversity, and accepted dancers of all ethnicities and backgrounds, Alvin was given the opportunity to do something great with his

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Alvin Ailey

    2627 Words  | 6 Pages

    Not great at sports, Alvin excelled in the less common athletics of gymnastics, especially the floor exercise (36). Being an African-American male, this was hard for Ailey and he struggled fitting in with his peers. Alvin Ailey had little experience with dance or the theater and it wasn’t until he moved to Los Angeles that his eyes were opened to the world of theatrics by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carolos and the performance of Katherine Dunham’s black dance company (DeFrantz 43). Ailey pursued 1940s dancing styles such as tap, but experimented and settled on modern dance when a school friend, Carmen de Lavallade, convinced him to join Lester Horton’s lively theatrical, Hollywood Studio in 1949 (43). As Ailey’s mentor, Horton proved to be a major role model and helped mold Alvin’s technique and

    Read More

  • Willie Cole's Artistic Ideas

    220 Words  | 1 Pages

    Willie Cole was born on January 3, 1955 in Newark,New Jersey where he also grew up. He attended the Boston University School of Fine Arts and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1976, and he didn't stop there.He then went on to study at the Art Students League of New York.Willie Cole has been very successful in his artistic ideas ever since.

    Read More

  • The Queen of Tap Dancing

    724 Words  | 2 Pages

    Eleanor Powell was born on November 21st, 1912 in Springfield, Massachusetts. At the age of two, her father abandoned her family, leaving her mother working hard to make ends meet. Her mother had told her that her father had died. At twenty three years of age, her father had re-introduced himself to her.

    Read More

  • Jackie Robinson Research Paper

    1356 Words  | 3 Pages

    Jack Roosevelt Robinson was born on January 31, 1919 (York). He was born in the small town of Cairo, Georgia, on that day in January. His parents were Jerry and Mallie Robinson, the two of them didn’t have the best of marriage but they made out ok (Allen). Later in 1919, Jerry left Mallie to go farm some land somewhere else, but it was later found out that he had run off with another woman.

    Read More

  • Miles Davis

    1688 Words  | 4 Pages

    Born in Alton, Illinois, Miles Davis grew up in a middle-class family in East St. Louis. Miles Davis took up the trumpet at the age of 13 and was playing professionally two years later. Some of his first gigs included performances with his high school bandand playing with Eddie Randall and the blue Devils. Miles Davis has said that the greatest musical experience of his life was hearing the Billy Eckstine orchestra when it passed through St. Louis. In September 1944 Davis went to New York to study at Juilliard but spend much more time hanging out on 52nd Street and eventually dropped out of school. He moved from his home in East St. Louis to New York primarily to enter school but also to locate his musical idol, Charlie Parker. He played with Parker live and in recordings from the period of 1945 to 1948. Davis began leading his own group in 1948 as well as working with arranger Gil Evans. Davis’ career was briefly interrupted by a heroin addiction, although he continued to record with other popular bop musicians.

    Read More

  • Music: John Philip Sousa

    985 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sousa was born on November 6, 1854 at a small place on 636 G Street, in southeast Washington D.C., near the Marine Barracks that would later have some influence on his music. (Sousa) His father played trombone in the Marine Band. Sousa was the third of ten children from John Antonio Sousa and Maria Elisabeth Trinkhous. Young Sousa grew up around military band music, and when he was just 6, he began learning a variety of instruments, such as; violin and piano. He also played flute, cornet, baritone, trombone, and alto horn. (Sousa)

    Read More

  • The Jazz Singer

    860 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Jazz Singer, released in 1927, is a black and white film that centers on a young man who wishes to conquer his dreams in becoming a professional jazz singer. This film, directed by Alan Crosland, demonstrates new developments from the decade of the 1920’s. During the decade, many new advances; such as the introduction of musicals and other technological advancements, were created. The Jazz Singer utilized these new advances of the decade and incorporated them into each scene. This is evident due to the elements of being the first talkie film, the introduction of the new musical genre and the introduction of the Hollywood stars system. By utilizing the new advances of the decade, Crosland’s film, changed the way cinema would be seen forever.

    Read More

  • The Dancer's Gift and Sociology

    904 Words  | 2 Pages

    “The Dancer’s gift” is a love story between a young man and woman, Marcel and Samantha. But this novel was written not only to call feelings about love and passion; the main goal was to introduce students to sociological concepts. Overall, the book includes more than 180 sociological terms that flow with the story and closely connected to happening events. Marcel, a black man, arrives from Martinique (an island in the Caribbean Sea), and Samantha, a rich American girl, meet each other in college and fall in love. Both of them face obstacles in their lives: Marcel was grown up in a poor extended but a friendly family, while Samantha was a daughter of rich but divorced parents. Marcel comes to the U.S. to become a professional dancer, while Sam decided to become an attorney at law just like her father. Being lovers they decide to spend their Christmas holidays together and go to New York. Next holidays they go to Marcel’s homeland, Martinique, where they realize that there lives a woman who is pregnant by him. At that time all dreams of Sam just collapse due to this bitter disappointment, which becomes one of the reasons why they break up. Throughout the story, they both meet with numerous social issues such as education, marriage, gender issue, racism, deviance, divorce, religion, race and ethnicity. In this essay, the three main reasons why this novel is an effective tool for learning sociological concepts will be discussed.

    Read More

  • Marlon Brando

    547 Words  | 2 Pages

    Marlon Brando was born on April 3rd 1924, in Omaha, Nebraska, the third and last child of Dorothy Pennebaker Brando and Marlon Brando, Senior. He had two sisters Jocelyn and Frances and was descended from Irish immigrants. In 1935, his parents separated, and his mother moved with her three children to Santa Ana in Orange County, California. Two years later, in 1937, his parents were reconciled again, and the family moved to Libertyville, Illinois, north of Chicago near Lake Michigan. (Bosworth, 2004)

    Read More

More about Gene Kelly: Highly Talented Dancer

Open Document