As a vocalist, I have never been a great fan of the dance. Not the least reason is that I have very little aptitude for it by reasons of no rhythm and no agility. There are other reasons: Ballet is a bunch of overly skinny girls running around on their tippytoes (I like my women like I like my chicken: a little bit of fat on the ends), and so much of modern dance seems like little more than writhing around on the floor in pain. And frankly, I don't see the enthusiasm for a kick line.
Though I did a little on stage (poorly) in my younger days, I now avoid dancing at nearly all costs. Though I WILL do a slow dance at the father-daughter dance, I avoid anything more, and I suspect my window of opportunity on ever taking a Zumba lesson has slammed shut more or less permanently.
That said, a good dance, well done can be a thing of beauty. I've never heard of these guys: the Nicholas Brothers, but this clip has me amazed: I can't imagine two people in such synch as to do the things these guys do. I'm not sure their feet are even touching the ground half the time. It truly is a thing of beauty.
I just wish we had a president who was as competent at his job as these guys are at theirs.
As a bonus: Here's the dance scene from the HIGHLY underrated spy spoof Top Secret. This scene is also a thing of beauty, but for far different reasons.
Thr Nicholas Brothers are amazing. I first heard of them when I was taking a tap class in college. They started out in Vaudeville. I believe that my college tap teacher said they filmed the above sequence all in one take and everyone was amazed that they were able to do it perfectly the first time, but in Vaudeville, they had to do it perfectly every time and they couldn't understand why they would need any more than one take.
ReplyDeleteI was was around a lot of dance during my years in high school, but it was nothing I ever had any chance at being any good at: too fat, slow and clumsy. It's one of those things that, like I said, done well is a thing of beauty. There's just so much that's not done well that it's rarely worth the effort to search.
ReplyDeleteI'm wouldn't be surprised if it was filmed all in one take. You're right: one stage, you only get one chance to get it right. And you notice, as well, that they show their full bodies for the entire act: No close ups of tapping feet, no smiley face shots. Everything is caught on camera and you can see how amazingly graceful they truly are from head to toe. No "stunt doubles" there!