Stage Door: "Trip to Bountiful"

Dancin’ Dan here. The Tony Nominations come out tomorrow and Nathaniel will be discussing them along with a couple new plays he's seen. He has yet to see this one, though.

I have been a lifelong lover of live theater. As much as I love movies, nothing beats the experience of seeing a play or musical live on stage. Even at its worst, there is still an intangible quality to watching a story unfold right in front of you at the same time you are watching. At its best, though, that turns into something transcendent – there is something about watching a person really live a moment while you watch that is indescribable. In the new Broadway revival of Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful with Cicely Tyson and Vanessa Williams (and Cuba Gooding, Jr.), there were two moments when the power of live theater asserted itself so strongly that I wept.

The first moment is by far the broadest in Tyson’s wonderful, Tony-worthy performance. Having almost reached her childhood home of Bountiful, TX, Tyson’s Carrie Watts finds herself in a bus station with a young friend she made on the bus (a lovely Condola Rashad). First, she breaks out into the hymn “Blessed Assurance”, clapping and swaying like a revival preacher. Then, only a couple of minutes later, she drags Rashad through the dance she remembers doing at the first social dance she went to, which just so happened to be in the very town in which they find themselves. It isn’t merely the sight of the eighty-something Tyson singing and dancing up a storm that moved me, but the transfer of energy between audience and performer that can only take place during a live performance. As Tyson went on, the audience was right alongside her, clapping along and willing her into a bigger, more energetic display. Tyson was all too happy to oblige, alight with a glow from within, sending the audience’s energy right back out to them, earning every bit of the ovation she received. It was truly a sight to behold. [more...]

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April Showers: "Singin' In The Rain"

Dancin’ Dan (or, as you might know me from the comment section, denny) here, with a special Dance on Film edition of April Showers for your weekend.

 You all know the feeling, right? The project you’re working on is sunk because one of your partners is an idiot (a beautiful, blonde idiot with a nasally squawk of a voice). After a late night brainstorming session with two of your other partners, you come up with a brilliant solution to your problem. How do you celebrate?

If your immediate answer to that question was not “take the partner that I have a crush on home, then wave the cab away so I can walk home in the rain, giving away my umbrella to some random stranger on the street,” don’t worry. It just means that you’re not a Hollywood star of the silent screen played by Gene Kelly in a 1950s musical. 

And in real life, such a response would be crazy, most likely getting you nothing but a nasty case of pneumonia. But on the silver screen, it feels perfectly natural, an explosion of joy… a glorious feeling!

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Tues Top Ten: Tarantino's Toes

A dark Cinderella moment in "Inglourious Basterds"Denny, back again after dancing to Chicago this weekend. When Nathaniel was looking for suggestions to kick off Tarantino Week, I immediately suggested a piece (or pieces) called "Tarantino’s Toes," in honor of his position as the world’s foremost foot fetishist. I was half-joking, but the alliteration was simply too much to walk away from. Little did I know what I was getting myself into. How does one even begin to rank the many, many feet Tarantino has filmed? Does one go by the height of the arch? The length? The width?

… Sorry. I just had to run to the sink. I’m better now.

Actually, on re-watch, I found that, while they aren’t always plot devices, Tarantino does actually use feet to illuminate his themes and charact… Sorry. I just can’t take this seriously. We’re talking about FEET for frak’s sake! To wit, being as non-pervy as I possibly can, my completely arbitrary list of...

Tarantino’s Top Ten Toes

Honorable Mention: Mia’s foot massage in Pulp Fiction
We don’t actually see it onscreen, so I didn’t consider it eligible, but Jules’s monologue about the ultimately deadly foot massage that “Tony Rocky Horror” gave to Mia Wallace is pretty killer. That, according to Mia, the foot massage never even happened makes it even more intriguing.

10 O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill, Vol. 1
They’re only glimpsed for a split second, but the sight of Lucy Liu’s O-Ren running down a table just before slicing off the head of the one member of the crime council who dissents to her new leadership in one swift, clean cut, is one of the film’s best surprises. And on repeat views, it only gets funnier.

more little piggies after the jump

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10th Anniversary: That Jazzy "Chicago" Win

[Editor's Note: You know "Denny" well from the comments section. Since he's a choreographer by trade, I asked him to sound off on Dance in film. Particularly on Chicago since its win was so strangely celebrated at this year's Oscars making the show a weird mix of 2012 & 2002. Take it away, Denny. - Nathaniel R.]

a happy night for CZJ & Friends, March 23rd, 2003

Oh, how I remember the cheers.

I was at an Oscar party with a group of theater friends ten years ago when Rob Marshall’s Chicago became the first musical in thirty-five years to win the Oscar for Best Picture. It’s easy to see why everyone was excited: Following Moulin Rouge! (and to a lesser extent, Hedwig and the Angry Inch) the year before, it was clear that Hollywood was finally interested in live-action musicals not aimed at children again. There hadn’t been a major live-action Hollywood musical aimed at adults since 1996’s divisive Evita, and before that the last one was 1986’s Little Shop of Horrors. The last to receive major awards attention was 1982’s Victor Victoria (or 1983’s Yentl, depending on your definition of “major awards attention”), and a musical hadn’t won the Oscar for Best Picture since 1968’s Oliver!, a much-derided winner in a year that actually saw two musicals nominated for Best Picture (the other being Funny Girl), if you can believe it. more...

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