travsd

Happy International Dance Day

April 29 is the birthday of Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810), considered by many to be one of the principal fathers of modern ballet. Most (if not all) of the 80 ballets he created are lost to time but he did leave a written legacy in the form of the 1760 book Les Lettres sur la danse et sur les ballets, an influential collection of his writings on the dance and theatre, containing his many idea for the directions those art forms could take. David Garrick, with whom he worked for two years, called him the “Shakespeare of the Dance”. Marie Antoinette named him ballet master of the Paris Opera. He was also pals with the likes of Voltaire and Mozart.

Since 1982, Noverre’s birthday has been celebrated as International Dance Day. Seems an appropriate occasion on which to remind you about the over 300 articles in the Dance section of Travalanche. Within that category there are a couple of sub-groups, including sections for ballet and tap. Burlesque dancers will be found in the burlesque section, though that also includes comedians and producers.

The subcategories in the Dance section are not as complete as they might be. The challenge in organizing has been the fact that so many professional dancers didn’t (and don’t) specialize, they worked (and work) in many styles, and often hybridize them. Whereas the dedicated sections tend to be devoted to artists who were narrowly focused. There are many other potential sub-cats that could probably stand to be created here at some point: ballroom dancing, modern dancing, Irish dancing, Latin dancing, etc. But for now, it’s just the catch-all, and it’s not too unwieldy to navigate. Anyway, I’m dancing as fast as I can! And of course if there is a certain artist or style you wish to zero in on, there’s the search function on the right hand side of your screen. That may SOUND basic, but you would be astounded at the number of people I’ve encountered to whom news of that miracle of technology seems to have bypassed.

Anyway, should you really be really internet articles on International Dance Day? Attend a dance concert! Dance with some you love! And if there’s someone you hate, dance it off!

For more on show biz history, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, And please stay tuned for my upcoming Electric Vaudeville: A Century of Radio and TV Variety.

Published by travsd

Writer and performer Trav S.D. (www.travsd.com) is best known for his books "No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous" (2005) and "Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube" (2013). He has written for the NY Times, the Village Voice, American Theatre, Time Out NY, Reason, the Villager and numerous other publications. Trav has been in the vanguard of New York’s vaudeville and burlesque scenes since 1995 when he launched his company Mountebanks, presenting hundreds of acts ranging from Todd Robbins to Dirty Martini to Tammy Faye Starlite to the Flying Karamazov Brothers. He has directed his own plays, revues and solo pieces at such venues as Joe’s Pub, La Mama, HERE, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, the Ohio Theatre, the Brick, and 6 separate shows in the NY International Fringe Festival. In 2014 he produced and directed the smash-hit "I’ll Say She Is", the first ever revival of the Marx Brothers hit 1924 Broadway show in the NY International Fringe Festival.