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More of the astounding Gwen Verdon — 13 Comments

  1. I’m not a big dance fan.
    I like Astaire.
    I think of Danny Kaye’s Modern Dance routine in White Christmas when I think of Bob Fosse.
    I’m glad you featured the Damn Yankees routine. I watched it with no audio.
    That was fun and even joyful.
    The exact opposite of the Cool Hand Luke routine, which reminded me of Danny Kaye again. 🙂

  2. neo,

    Her allure is not overt. It seems inate, a natural part of her physicality. Wow!

  3. She looks like a better dancer than the guys because the kind of dancing they are doing looks better done by gals than by guys.
    I like Astaire and Rogers.

  4. I had the pleasure of seeing Gwen and Chita Rivera in “Chicago” back in ’74 or ’75. Wow.

  5. Fine dancing, and cat-like grace with sensuous movements by Gwen.

    Still, there’s something about watching dance numbers, even the great ones, that leaves me a bit cold, somehow. Even Astaire and M. Jackson. And I love to dance. I don’t love to watch.

    Gwen does look like she’s having fun, and that’s important.

  6. Definitely amazing, sensuous and beautiful.

    Verdon is dancing in a different league from the guys. I do get the sense she has trained long and hard for very fine control of her muscles. Though I’m not sure a guy could move his hips like that however much he trained.

    But “Cool Hand Luke”? Is that in the movie? I assumed it was some Tijuana Brass song I had heard a lot on the radio.

  7. Bob Fosse, Verdon’s daughter and other students are passing on the legacy:

    The Verdon Fosse Legacy
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8OpCoOIn0Y

    I don’t know enough to follow, but I can see the intricacy and care involved. I get a vicarious thrill to watch pros who are excited about what they are doing.

  8. I would up watching the two men. They both echoed Verdon’s moves. Verdon was clearly very feminine as a dancer. Unfortunately, the shark on the right (stage left) is, too. But the shark on the left (stage right) managed to both echo Verdon’s moves and still come across as masculine. I’d say, he was a pretty good dancer. Wonder who he was…

    Fosse was great at dancing, movement, and coming across as masculine.

  9. Lee: I give the two guys credit. They were game. But they were stepping into her world to match her techniques which she had been honing for years.

    I doubt there were more than a dozen dancers in the world, if that, who could have parachuted in to equal Verdon’s chops.

    That was the point of the Legacy video I mentioned. The synthesis Fosse and Verdon came up with was unique and subtle — not part of the standard repertoire. One either learns it from someone who knows or is brilliant enough to recreate it.

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