MetaFilter posts tagged with dancers

Gandy Dancers

flapjax at midnite — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 04:48:53 -0800

Gandy Dancers is a fascinating and inspiring look at the music made by the African-American workers in the south who maintained railroad tracks, "lining up" the tracks manually. This hard work required synchronized effort, and the rhythm came from improvised songs. The film features a group of retired Gandy dancers talking about and demonstrating the songs they sang and the work they did.

Dancing "rave style": from beginner to geriatric, you're covered

Unicorn on the cob — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:50:12 -0800

How to dance at a rave. People dancing to house music. The Detroit Jit vs. Chicago Juke. The history of the Detroit Jit on popular dance show The Scene from the 80's. 80's legends the Funkateers doing their thing to Wordy Rappinghood. Compare them to the New York City Breakers. But let's take it back, way back... The Nicholas Brothers vs. Benny Benassi. Think they look like they're raving? What about when you throw Kanye West in the mix? Have we always danced with such abandon? In South Africa, we have. More dancing from Ethiopia that looks like a lot of rave dancing to me. Masai tribespeople raving it up. Think raving is for young people? You're wrong. I saw this woman driving her scooter into tents at the DEMF in 2006 and getting up to dance... then found her again on YouTube. Think she was a one-time fluke? Wrong again. Here she is raving it up in 2007. Previously. Now everybody get out there and dance a little!

Lautrec's models in photographs

taz — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 06:42:13 -0800

Photographs of the dancers, actresses, cafe-life figures and prostitutes who were the subjects of Toulouse Lautrec's paintings, including such luminaries as Sarah Bernhardt, "La Goulue" (Louise Weber; remember this?), and Jane Avril, who was the model for this last, iconic, Lautrec poster. View pages of the art matched up with photos, here, here, and here, and go to this page to rummage around in even more collections that include photos of Lautrec, his friends and family, street and location scenes, and lots of other tidbits. [Spanish language site; NUDITY]

Dance History Archives

OmieWise — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 06:46:12 -0800

I'm no dancer, but I'm fascinated by the Dance History Archives. The index of dance styles is comprehensive, and the individual entries provide everything from history to related music links. (Jitterbug, May Pole, The Watusi) There's a short glossary, an index of dancers, a voluptuous section on burlesque (including some great NSFW pictures), an archive of posters (Josephine Baker!), and so much more. The list of Dancer Related Celebrities is pretty extensive (Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth), although there's no Jennifer Grey, so I guess Baby got put in a corner after all.

sometimes there's good news

dances_with_sneetches — Sat, 16 Apr 2005 21:41:47 -0800

Doris Eaton Travis. Doris Eaton returned to Broadway 87 years after her premiere. Her film debut was only 84 years ago. She wrote her award-winning autobiography when she was only 99.