Rebel On Pointe: A Memoir of Ballet & Broadway by Lee Wilson University Press of Florida; 224 pages; $24.95 Follow Lee Wilson on her dance journey from American suburbia in the 1950s to Europe–where she danced for royalty–and finally to the Broadway stage. This is an inspiring story of teenage professional success you’ll want to […]
Broadway Melody of 1940 and Two Tickets to Broadway 2 DVDs Warner Bros. Archive Collection 105 mins and 102 mins; $16.70 and $14.99 on amazon.com Give your students a taste of old-school grace and style with this two-pack of DVDs, featuring dance stars Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell and Ann Miller. Enter […]
Initially released in 1988, Mr. Bojangles: The Biography of Bill Robinson was well-reviewed but fell out of print, relegated to collectors’ shelves. Now, the full-length biography of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson has been re-released, and teachers and dance history buffs can once again get their hands on the story of the legendary tapper. Robinson (1878–1949) was known for […]
Seen & Heard At the Dance Teacher Summit Blankenbuehler led a Broadway workshop at the 2013 Dance Teacher Summit Andy Blankenbuehler has devoted his whole career to musical theater dance. After performing on Broadway for nearly 15 years, he spent the past decade choreographing hit musicals. He won the Tony for Best Choreography for In […]
Between rehearsals, classes and multiple shows each day, Broadway performers don’t have much free time, which makes this new video even more extraordinary. A crew of Broadway dancers somehow worked it into their schedules to create an adorable crowd-pleaser of a tap routine to hit song “Cups (Pitch Perfect’s ‘When I’m Gone’)” by Anna Kendrick, […]
Andy Blankenbuehler working with Annie’s Emily Rosenfeld and Georgi James Some of the year’s biggest Broadway hits, from Matilda to A Christmas Story, are powered by pint-sized stars. This Friday, PBS debuts a documentary featuring the feisty, pre-teen cast of Annie. “ANNIE: It’s the Hard-Knock Life, From Script to Stage” focuses on the details of […]
The Tony Awards must never let Neil Patrick Harris not host ever again. The four-time MC of Broadway’s Biggest Night sang, danced, rapped and did acrobatics, magic tricks and cheerleading stunts all in an opening number that made me want to shut off the TV right then and there because nothing could possibly top it. […]
Ryan Steele, who is taking Broadway by storm as “Specs” in Disney’s Newsies, had no false illusions about what awaited him at auditions in New York. He credits Dori Matkowski of Dance Dynamics Performing Arts Center in Michigan for recognizing that being prepared for anything and everything is the key to success. “Miss Dori instilled in […]