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Georgie Tapps
Georgie Tapps (born Mortimer Alphonse Becker; 1907–1997) was an American tap dancer. He appeared in a number of films and Broadway productions. He was known for his repertoire of ballet-tap and toured the vaudeville circuit during the 1930s and 1940s, performing in many cabarets and nightclubs. Early life Mortimer Alphonse Becker was born in 1907 in New York City. At the age of seven, his dancing at a church benefit was noticed by a theatrical producer who offered him a scholarship to study ballet. He received a three-year dance scholarship from choreographer Ned Wayburn. Upon its completion, Wayburn offered to sign the 10-year-old Becker to a twenty-year contract, but the offer was rejected by his parents. When he was 16, he performed at a club in New York City. The club's owner called him "Georgie Tapps". However, a 1945 article in ''Dance Magazine'' credits New York politician Sol Bloom with suggesting the nickname. Career Alongside Paul Draper, Tapps was among the first ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tap Dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely performed in musical theater. Rhythm tap focuses on musicality, and practitioners consider themselves to be a part of the jazz tradition. The sound is made by shoes that have a metal "tap" on the heel and toe. There are different brands of shoes which sometimes differ in the way they sound. Ok History The fusion of several ethnic percussive dances, such as West African step dances and Welsh, Irish, and Scottish clog dancing, hornpipes, and jigs, tap dance is believed to have begun in the mid-1800s during the rise of minstrel shows. As minstrel shows began to decline in popularity, tap dance moved to the increasingly popular Vaudeville stage. Due to Vaudeville's unspoken "two-colored rule", which forbade blacks to perform solo, many Vaudevi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. The term "White House" is often used as a metonym for the president and his advisers. The residence was designed by Irish-born architect James Hoban in the neoclassical style. Hoban modelled the building on Leinster House in Dublin, a building which today houses the Oireachtas, the Irish legislature. Construction took place between 1792 and 1800, using Aquia Creek sandstone painted white. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the house in 1801, he (with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe) added low colonnades on each wing that concealed stables and storage. In 1814, during the War of 1812, the mansion was set ablaze by British forces in the Burning of Washington, destroying the interior and charring much of the exterior. Reconstruction began ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flamenco
Flamenco (), in its strictest sense, is an art form based on the various folkloric music traditions of southern Spain, developed within the gitano subculture of the region of Andalusia, and also having historical presence in Extremadura and Murcia. In a wider sense, it is a portmanteau term used to refer to a variety of both contemporary and traditional musical styles typical of southern Spain. Flamenco is closely associated to the gitanos of the Romani ethnicity who have contributed significantly to its origination and professionalization. However, its style is uniquely Andalusian and flamenco artists have historically included Spaniards of both gitano and non-gitano heritage. The oldest record of flamenco music dates to 1774 in the book ''Las Cartas Marruecas'' by José Cadalso. The development of flamenco over the past two centuries is well documented: "the theatre movement of sainetes (one-act plays) and tonadillas, popular song books and song sheets, customs, studies of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manuel De Falla
Manuel de Falla y Matheu (, 23 November 187614 November 1946) was an Andalusian Spanish composer and pianist. Along with Isaac Albéniz, Francisco Tárrega, and Enrique Granados, he was one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century. He has a claim to being Spain's greatest composer of the 20th century, although the number of pieces he composed was relatively modest. Biography Falla was born Manuel María de los Dolores Falla y Matheu in Cádiz. He was the son of José María Falla, a Valencian, and María Jesús Matheu, from Catalonia. In 1889 he continued his piano lessons with Alejandro Odero and learned the techniques of harmony and counterpoint from Enrique Broca. At age 15 he became interested in literature and journalism and founded the literary magazines ''El Burlón'' and ''El Cascabel''. Madrid By 1900 he was living with his family in the capital, where he attended the Real Conservatorio de Música y Declamación. He studied piano ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ritual Fire Dance
Ritual Fire Dance (Spanish: Danza ritual del fuego) is a movement of the ballet ''El amor brujo'' (The Bewitched Love), written by the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla in 1915. It was made popular by the composer's own piano arrangement. The dance has a duration of about three to four and a half minutes. The work can be associated to 1910 Rimsky-Korsakov's " Flight of the Bumblebee" due to its fast, repetitive trills and ornaments. The piece was also influenced by the traditional, religious ceremony of a fire dance, a dance which was used to worship the fire-god and in which people would often jump through or leap around the fire. Plot In de Falla's ballet ''El amor brujo'', a young Andalusian gypsy girl called Candela is haunted by the ghost of her dead husband. To get rid of him, all the gypsies make a large circle around their campfire at midnight. Candela then performs the Ritual Fire Dance. This causes the ghost to appear, with whom she then dances. As they whirl around ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billboard (magazine)
''Billboard'' (stylized as ''billboard'') is an American music and entertainment magazine published weekly by Penske Media Corporation. The magazine provides music charts, news, video, opinion, reviews, events, and style related to the music industry. Its music charts include the Hot 100, the 200, and the Global 200, tracking the most popular albums and songs in different genres of music. It also hosts events, owns a publishing firm, and operates several TV shows. ''Billboard'' was founded in 1894 by William Donaldson and James Hennegan as a trade publication for bill posters. Donaldson later acquired Hennegan's interest in 1900 for $500. In the early years of the 20th century, it covered the entertainment industry, such as circuses, fairs, and burlesque shows, and also created a mail service for travelling entertainers. ''Billboard'' began focusing more on the music industry as the jukebox, phonograph, and radio became commonplace. Many topics it covered were spun-off ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plaza Hotel
The Plaza Hotel (also known as The Plaza) is a luxury hotel and condominium apartment building in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is located on the western side of Grand Army Plaza, after which it is named, just west of Fifth Avenue, and is between 58th Street and Central Park South ( 59th Street), at the southeastern corner of Central Park. Its primary address is 768 Fifth Avenue, though the residential entrance is One Central Park South. The 21-story, French Renaissance-inspired château style building was designed by Henry Janeway Hardenbergh. The facade is made of marble at the base, with white brick covering the upper stories, and is topped by a mansard roof. The ground floor contains the two primary lobbies, as well as a corridor connecting the large ground-floor restaurant spaces, including the Oak Room, the Oak Bar, the Edwardian Room, the Palm Court, and the Terrace Room. The upper stories contain the ballroom and a variety of residential condominiums, condo- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Service Organizations
The United Service Organizations Inc. (USO) is an American nonprofit-charitable corporation that provides live entertainment, such as comedians, actors and musicians, social facilities, and other programs to members of the United States Armed Forces and their families. Since 1941, it has worked in partnership with the Department of War, and later with the Department of Defense (DoD), relying heavily on private contributions and on funds, goods, and services from various corporate and individual donors. Although it is congressionally chartered, it is not a government agency. Founded during World War II, the USO sought to be the GI's "home away from home" and began a tradition of entertaining the troops and providing social facilities. Involvement in the USO was one of the many ways in which the nation had come together to support the war effort, with nearly 1.5 million people having volunteered their services in some way. The USO initially disbanded in 1947, but was reviv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stage Door Canteen
The Stage Door Canteen was an entertainment venue for American and Allied servicemen that operated in the Broadway theatre district of New York City throughout World War II. Founded by the American Theatre Wing (ATW) in 1942, the entertainers were largely unpaid; volunteering their talents as a way of supporting the morale of American troops during the war. Several women in leadership with the ATW played a critical role in establishing the Stage Door Canteen, including actress Nedda Harrigan and ATW co-founders Louise Heims Beck and Antoinette Perry. The canteen opened March 2, 1942 and operated seven nights a week in the previously unoccupied Little Club under the 44th Street Theatre at 216 West 44th Street in Manhattan. The official estimate of attendance on the canteen's opening night was 1,250, with 200 "actresses of varying importance" as hostesses and 75 "'name' actors" as busboys. The canteen's popularity led to the establishment of other canteens throughout the United ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Theatre Wing
The American Theatre Wing (the Wing for short) is a New York City–based non-profit organization "dedicated to supporting excellence and education in theatre", according to its mission statement. Originally known as the Stage Women's War Relief during World War I, it later became a part of the World War II Allied Relief Fund under its current name. The ATW created and sponsors the Tony Awards in theatrical arts. Background Stage Women's War Relief Stage Women's War Relief was founded in 1917 to organize charitable giving in support of the war effort. Its founders, led by playwright and director Rachel Crothers, included the actress and playwright Louise Closser Hale and actresses Dorothy Donnelly, Josephine Hull, Minnie Dupree, Elizabeth Tyree and Louise Drew. The organization established workrooms for sewing uniforms and other garments (with total output totaling 1,863,645 articles), set up clothing and food collection centers, sold Liberty Bonds, and opened a canteen on Br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran Kelly (August 23, 1912 – February 2, 1996) was an American actor, dancer, singer, filmmaker, and choreographer. He was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style and sought to create a new form of American dance accessible to the general public, "dance for the common man." He starred in, choreographed, and co-directed with Stanley Donen some of the most well-regarded musical films of the 1940s and 1950s. Kelly is best known for his performances in ''An American in Paris'' (1951), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, ''Singin' in the Rain'' (1952), which he and Donen directed and choreographed, and other musical films of that era such as ''Cover Girl'' (1944) and ''Anchors Aweigh'' (1945), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. '' On the Town'' (1949), which he co-directed with Donen, was his directorial debut. Later in the 1950s, as musicals waned in popularity, he starred in ''Brigadoon'' (1954) and ''It's Always Fair Wea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lorenz Hart
Lorenz Milton Hart (May 2, 1895 – November 22, 1943) was an American lyricist and half of the Broadway songwriting team Rodgers and Hart. Some of his more famous lyrics include " Blue Moon", " The Lady Is a Tramp", "Manhattan", "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", and "My Funny Valentine". Life and career Hart was born in Harlem, New York City, the elder of two sons, to Jewish immigrant parents, Max M. and Frieda (Isenberg) Hart, of German background. Through his mother, he was a great-grandnephew of the German poet Heinrich Heine. His father, a business promoter, sent Hart and his brother to private schools. (His brother, Teddy Hart, also went into theatre and became a musical comedy star. Teddy Hart's wife, Dorothy Hart, wrote a biography of Lorenz Hart.) Hart received his early education from Columbia Grammar School and entered Columbia College in 1913, before switching to Columbia University School of Journalism, where he attended for two years. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
