Choreographer Busby Berkeley’s Contributions to Film
Berkeley’s creations were not meant to focus on dance. He envisioned an overall moving pattern, which he created by using moving bodies. He made the art of choreography a technique of design and visual mathematics, and combined this with his knowledge of film to bring his vision to life on the big screen. The skill of this multi-talented man brought Hollywood musicals to their full potential, creating a high demand for dance in films.
William Berkeley Enos was born November 29, 1895, in Los Angeles. He began his career as a choreographer in 1918 as a lieutenant in the army. Conducting and directing parades. He gained the ability to work with large masses of moving bodies to create a moving picture. He also worked as a choreographer to stage camp shows for the troops.
It was not until his collaboration with producer Florence Ziegfeld that Berkeley began choreographing for films. When Ziegfeld decided to turn his production of Whoopee into a film, he asked Berkeley, who had become one of the top Broadway dance directors, to choreograph the dance routines.
Berkeley, unhappy with the restrictions of his job, raised the bar for film choreographers by taking on decisions about camera angles and editing. Before Berkeley, these decisions had all been made by the director or the producer. One of Berkeley’s signature choices was to use only one camera. He also chose to use close-ups of the dancers in the chorus. He would say: “Well, we’ve got all these beautiful girls in the picture, why not let the public see them?” This approach showed that Berkeley understood that innovative filmmakers possess the ability to use the camera to show audiences what their normal sight does ...
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Although his death was tragic, Busby Berkeley will be remembered for his visionary talent. He has also been considered the creator of the formulaic marketing approaches you see today in music videos. As Larry Billman points out,“Berkeley’s ever-unfolding kaleidoscopic patterns and complete montage/ scenarios certainly had commercial advantage” (15). Berkeley embraced the possibility that the relationship between a camera and a moving body could bring a song to life. After his extravagant musical numbers, there was no doubt that the entire audience would leave the theater knowing the songs by heart.
And so Berkeley was way ahead of his time. He could see within film a very important image, not the individual dancers themselves, but the dancing image. And with that he created sequences that remain some of the most beautiful spectacles on the screen.
Unlike most of his contemporaries, Grossman’s dance movements vary from one production to another. In the 1975 production ‘Higher’ the dance movements were mainly using the whole body. The piece went for 15 minutes and was explicit in its design so that the audience could clearly see and understand the intended message/s. This piece received many awards and is what got Grossman noticed and brought into the dancing world.
Mark Morris branched out and established himself as a successful choreographer in 1980 and established the Mark Morris Dance Group. He established this company after moving to New York City, his first major choreographed work, Rattlesnake Song, garnered critical acclaim by r...
In the dance world a staggering number of choreographers have made a lasting impact on the way dance is seen to its audience. Alonzo King’s exceptional oeuvre of work includes him in this great history of significant choreographers. He not only created the link between modern and ballet in the twentieth century, but he bridged the ...
Alvin Ailey played a large role in the diversification and cultural storytelling that can be seen in modern dance today. With the founding of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, his dance company stands strong as one of the most respected and prosperous dance companies because of its artistic representation of the beauty that is otherwise known as the African culture. His work absolutely changed the atmosphere of modern dance because he was able to provide the modern dance community with a wider variety of content that had otherwise not been popularized before. Not only did he draw his inspiration from the African culture, but he also amalgamated this with his personal experience growing up as a black child during times of segregation.
On May 16th, 1838, Lucretia Mott held the second Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women. The women of this convention were fighting to end slavery in Washington, D.C. and also wanted to boycott goods created by slave labor. During the women’s protest, they approached a riot. The crowd of 17,000 people that they were facing explained that if the blacks were freed there would be fewer jobs for everyone else in the state. It would also bring wages down even more from what they were already at. During this time period, majority of the people were factory workers who feared losing their jobs. They believed that African Americans were not worth losing their jobs over, so they wanted them to be kept as slaves. However, Lucretia did not feel as though this was right. She believed that they deserve to be able to work and be free just as much as everyone else in the community. The mob of people threated the women that were included in the convention with violence, and Lucretia was not going to stand for that. Each white woman linked arms with an African American woman and walked out of the building. After walking out of the building, the doors were locked...
The stage performance of Rogers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma was a beautiful integration of book, song and dance. The three elements add richness and aesthetic quality in very distinctive ways. Dance is a form of expression using rhythmic movements of the body. Facial expressions and the use of body language through dance offer portrayals of feelings that compensate for dialogue. The choreography done by Agnes de Mille integrates dance into the lives of the frontiersmen (and women) of the Oklahoma territory. The 20th Century Fox film version released in 1955 had key differences than the current Broadway musical. One of the main differences other than a little extra dialogue was the utilization of dance. In the film dance was not used as a primary asset to the production. The impact of dance could be described by comparing the stage performance with the film.
Music is reliant on expression through the medium of sound. Dance revolves around expression through movement. The ballet Rodeo, choreographed by Agnes de Mille and composed by Aaron Copland in 1942, combines these two channels to emphasize this ballet as an American genre about cowboys and cowgirls in the west. At the insistence of de Mille, characterization and emotion portrayal in both the choreography and the music was necessary (Pollack 369). Before Copland began composing Rodeo, de Mille outlined the dance for Copland in detail. She let him know how many measures she wanted for specific dance scenes and gave him descriptions of the music she wanted for a specific scenes and characters (Pollack 367). She also provided Copland with some cowboy folk tunes that he could incorporate into his compositions (Pollack 367). Seemingly, Copland was providing most of the collaboration for this ballet de Mille had envisioned. The inspiration for most of the music came from the dance movements and the story of the ballet. This is unlike Copland’s later compositi...
Ballet is one of the world's oldest and newest forms of dance. One man that created new audiences for ballet and mastered the dance to its fullest was none other than George Balanchine. He brought the standard ballet to levels no one has ever seen before. In the world of dance, there have been many wonderful and talented choreographers but Balanchine's work affected the dance world so much that he was a legend long before his death. Not only was he legendary worldwide but also his influenced American Ballet. George Balanchine's unique style of dance created the "American style" of Ballet.
4.Bob Fosse showed great interest in dancing when he was very young because his father was a dancer and this influenced a lot to his future career. His marriage with Joan McCracken helped a lot in his shortcomings in classical dancing like ballet. He was remembered by his eight Tony Awards. In his musical works, he got inspirations from Jack Cole’s directions and made innovations of his own. The unique stage effect and dancing skills made him the most recognized musical directors of his time.
Gene Kelly once described his career by stating, “I never wanted to be a dancer... I wanted to be a shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates” (IMDb). The events of Kelly’s life and career would almost reflect this sentiment if it were not for the incredible impact Kelly had on the history of cinema. Though he claims in an interview found in He’s Got Rhythm:The Life and Career of Gene Kelly by Cynthia Brideson that his career was more incidental than anything, it was his innovative style, charisma, and challenge of classism in the dance industry that proved him to be a true revolutionary in the world of musical cinema. Gene Kelly challenged the style of studio musicals in not only his form of dance. He challenged the way dancing was viewed by society. Gene Kelly’s legacy can be detailed by his influence on the dance styles found on stage and screen, in modern cinematography and editing, and in the his challenge of the stereotypes
Famous choreographer George Balanchine once said, “He is the most interesting, the most inventive, the most elegant dancer of our times” and noted dancer Rudolph Nureyev also said, “He was not just the best ballroom dancer, or tap dancer, he was simply the greatest, most imaginative, dancer of our time.” These famous dancers were referring to Fred Astaire, who has been known as one of the greatest dancers of all time. His light, artistic joyful style of dancing has impacted dance in an extremely unique way. Astaire used techniques in films as well as in dance that have shaped society. Astaire was mostly prominent throughout the 1930s during the Great Depression. Everywhere, Americans were looking for some joy in their lives, and Astaire was able to give them hope in a period of history that lacked optimism. Fred Astaire’s carefree dance movement style and techniques, specifically in the films Swing Time and The Gay Divorcee, help America through the Great Depression and signifies the importance of art in this time period.
The freedom of the American life and culture of the 1970’s overflowed to make a major impact on music and dance during this period. American culture flourished. The events of the times were reflected in and became the inspiration for much of the music, literature, entertainment, and even fashion of the decade. Choreographers wanted to motivate the dancers to leap into the unknown and experience the contact of dance in their own way.
During the early 20th century, dance underwent a major revolution. Previously, dance, specifically ballet, was very rigid and structured. With the turn of the century though, many choreographers began experimenting with techniques and styles that transcended the traditional norms of dance at the time such as the legendary Merce Cunningham. Known for works such as Variations and Nearly Ninety, Merce Cunningham left his impact on the modern dance world with his use of chance operations, his collaboration with various artist and musicians, and later in his life, technology. An apprentice of Martha Graham, Merce went on to teach famous dancers, such as Paul Taylor, who would go on to leave their own footprint in the history of dance.
“Genetically modified foods are a "Pandora's box" of known and unknown risks to humans and the environment. They have been forced onto the American public by multinational biotech and agribusiness corporations without adequate oversight and regulation by the United States government (Driscoll, SallyMorley, David C).”Genetically Modified Food is food which has been chemically altered by scientists during the production process to give the food more nutrients, better appearance, and a longer shelf-life (Rich, Alex K.Warhol, Tom). The importance of this issue is that these GMO’s can actually have a negative effect in our society in general. It could mutate in a negative way and cause cancer or other diseases. Genetically modified food should be strictly controlled due to its various detrimental effects on the environment, human health, and potentially insect/animal effects.
This report explains genetically modified food (GMOs) and discusses the benefits and risks associated with the consumptions of GMOs. Genetically modified foods (GMOs) are foods that have been genetically altered using engineering techniques. The most common technique used today is called recombinant DNA technology; this technology combines different molecules from different plant species to create a plant with a new set of genes, a hybrid plant. Another recombinant DNA technology being used is recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST) an artificial growth hormone; this hormone is being fed or injected into cows to improve milk production. (ThefreeDictionary)