A Thought-Leader In Family & Children’s Dance Classes | Houston, TX
Frame Dance is a thought leader in dance education, inspiring the next generation of movers, makers, and world changers by offering dance classes for adults & children, multi-generational ensembles, professional performances, networking events, and film festivals. We are nestled between West U and the Museum District.
We believe in developing the whole dancer, teaching critical life skills such as creative thinking, leadership, collaboration, and resilience through our artful and playful dance curriculum at our studio and in partner schools.
Our adult modern dance classes are designed to offer you the joy and magic that’s possible when you create space in your life to move, to grow, and to share in the creative process with a like-hearted community.
For more than ten years, Frame Dance has brought radically inclusive and deeply personal contemporary dance to Houston. Led by Founder and Creative Director Lydia Hance, whom Dance Magazine calls “the city’s reigning guru of dance in public places,” the professional company is made up of six acclaimed co-creators committed to collaboration. Frame Dance has created over 50 unique site-specific performances and nine dances for the camera screened in festivals all over the United States and Europe. With an unrelenting drive to make dance in relationship to environment, Frame Dance has created dance works for and with METRO, Houston Museum of Natural Sciences, Houston Parks Board, Plant It Forward Farms, CORE Dance, Rice University, Houston Ballet, 14 Pews, Aurora Picture Show, and the Contemporary Arts Museum. Frame Dance’s productions were described by Arts + Culture Texas Editor-in-Chief Nancy Wozny as “some of the most compelling and entertaining work in Houston.” Creative Director Lydia Hance is a champion of living composers and is dedicated to work exclusively with new music.
10% of all proceeds go to Frame Dance. So if you want to see what we are all about then come join us and meet the Framers of Houston,TX!
Price: Free!!!
Magna Carta
February 14, 2014 – August 17, 2014 (Recurring daily)
Houston Museum of Natural Science
5555 Hermann Park Drive, Houston, TX 77030
An original edition of the “Magna Carta,” and the only known example of the King’s Writ – a letter from King John to the Sheriff of Gloucester announcing the signing of the Magna Carta – is headed to Houston from its home in Hereford Cathedral.
The Magna Carta is considered to be Great Britain’s most valuable export to the world and is a model upon which the United States Constitution was based. The Magna Carta continues to serve as the definitive document modeling basic civil liberties, and is the source of many of the most fundamental concepts of law. In more than 100 decisions, the United States Supreme Court has traced dependence on the Magna Carta for an understanding of due process, trial by jury, the importance of a speedy and unbiased trial, and protection against excessive bail or fines or cruel and unusual punishment.
Price: $25
40z Rock Annual Red Tea Party
February 23, 2014 from 2:00pm – 5:00pm
5415 Westheimer Rd, Houston, TX 77056
You’re invited to come out and join 40z Rock for a fun-filled afternoon of teas, desserts, and h’orderves . Not to mention, meet some fabulous women who ROCK spiritually, mentally and physically.
Price: $10
A Stroll Down Abbey Road
February 15, 2014 – February 23, 2014 (Every Sunday, Friday, Saturday)
17170 Mill Forest Road, Webster, TX 77598
Celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ U.S. debut with the Bay Area Houston Ballet & Theatre. A variety of dance styles will be performed to Beatles classics. Some of the featured songs include Here Comes the Sun, Because, Eleanor Rigby, Black Bird, Yellow Submarine and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
Price: $20
Found out more at their website at www.BAHBT.org
Electric Mardi Gras
February 21, 2014 – March 01, 2014 at 5:00p.m. – 1:00a.m., 12:00p.m. – 1:00 a.m.
(Recurring every 2 weeks Friday, Saturday)
21st and Strand, Galveston, TX 77550
At Mardi Gras! Galveston, the extravagance found in Texas’ largest Mardi Gras celebration starts with the beads! More than 3 million beads will be thrown at Mardi Gras! Galveston and that’s just the beginning of the elaborate parades, headliner performances, family events, feasting and other festivities that come with hosting Mardi Gras island style.
Price: $15
Find out more at http://www.mardigrasgalveston.com/electric/
Happy Hour Thursdays at MFAH
Every Thursday from 6-8pm
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The Museum of Fine Arts hosts Happy Hour Thursdays each week. MFAH admission is always free on Thursdays thanks to Shell and from 6 to 8 pm you’ll enjoy happy hour with tunes from a local DJ, light bites from Ladybird Food Truck and a cash bar. The museum is open til 9 every Thursday.
Price: Free!!!
ABCs of Organic Gardening
Saturday, February 22 at 10:15 am.
This is offered at both Cornelius locations: 1200 N. Dairy Ashford and 2233 S. Voss.
Free Clinic, held at all Calloway’s andCornelius locations. Organic gardening focuses first on the soil, as a critical component of a living ecosystem. The soil is filled with all sorts of living creatures that are often beneficial to garden plants. Thus, you might say that when an organic gardener fertilizes the garden, she “feeds the soil” rather than feeds her plants. Healthy lively soil provides the perfect home for healthy lively plants. This terrific clinic will cover how you can create that kind of healthy soil, right here in suburban Texas. Also, we’ll cover the Top Ten Garden Pests and offer some organic solutions.
Price: Free!!!
Exploring Houston’s Green History: Sam Houston Park, 1899−2014
The Heritage Society Museum Gallery
Founded in 1899, Sam Houston Park is the first and oldest municipal park in the city of Houston. This beloved historic green space was originally part of the land granted by Stephen F. Austin to John Austin in 1824. For the past 115 years, the park has served Houstonians as a center for outdoor recreation and social activities. This exhibit will showcase Sam Houston Park’s history as well The Heritage Society’s 60 year history of caring for this beloved city park.
Heritage Family Day
1−4 p.m.
Find out how Houstonians lived after they began to build a city and create homes of their own. Enjoy hands-on activities, crafts, a mock-excavation and refreshments. Take a tour of 1823 Old Place. Co-sponsored by Archaeological Institute of America Houston Society.
Cabbage is such a wonderful vegetable and often forgotten about. Not only is it full of fiber, it is also a great detoxifier and gets the blood moving and circulating throughout the body. Cabbage is also very affordable, one of the most cost friendly vegetables out there, so don’t miss out on this refreshing citrus cabbage salad. Your wallet and your waist line will thank you!
In an effort to get more cabbage in our diets, I made this dish………
Citrus Cabbage Salad
Looks Yummy, huh? Gather up these ingredients and follow these simple directions to make your own nutrient-dense, refreshing salad.
Ingredients
1/2 large Head of Red cabbage
1 medium Orange
1 tablespoon Olive Oil
1 tablespoon Apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon Lemon juice
Dash Chili powder
Directions
Step 1 Slice cabbage as finely as possible.
Step 2 Peel orange and slice into 1/2 inch segments.
Step 3 Add cabbage and orange slices to large bowl. Toss with olive oil, apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, and a dash of chili powder.
Step 4 Let sit in the fridge for a while to marinate or serve immediately.
The ingredients are simple and besides the red cabbage, probably already in your fridge/pantry.
If you use a whole head of cabbage, it makes a ton of salad, so I suggest making it for your next potluck and share with friends.
Eat Well. Live Well. Be Well.
Jill Wentworth is leading us Wednesday by Wednesday into making better food choices and being more healthful. Tune in every Wednesday to get some great recipes and advice from someone who really knows health. In an effort to fuel her passion to serve as well has enhance the lives of others through their nutritional choices, she started Eat Well SA(San Antonio). Her vision is to educate you on how to incorporate a healthy array of foods into your life. Eat Well is not a diet, nor does it embrace any one specific dietary agenda. She also offers customized programs that are educational and teach you the tools you need to maintain healthy, well balanced eating for your busy lives.
Born in New York City to Maurice Hines Sr. and Alma Hines, Gregory Hines began tapping when he was two years old, and began dancing semi-professionally at the age of five. Since then, he and his older brother Maurice performed together, studying with choreographer Henry LeTang. Gregory and Maurice also learned from veteran tap dancers such as Howard Sims and The Nicholas Brothers whenever they performed in the same venues. The two brothers were known as “The Hines Kids”, making nightclub appearances, and later as “The Hines Brothers”. When their father joined the act as a drummer,the name changed again in 1963 to “Hines, Hines, and Dad”.
Hines performed as the lead singer and musician in a rock band called Severance in the year of 1975-1976 based in Venice, California. Severance was one of the house bands at an original music club called Honky Hoagies Handy Hangout, otherwise known as the 4H Club. In 1986, he sang a duet with Luther Vandross, entitled “There’s Nothing Better Than Love”, which reached the No. 1 position on the Billboard R&B charts.
Hines made his movie debut in Mel Brooks’s History of the World, Part 1. Critics took note of Hines’s comedic charm, and he later appeared in such movies as The Cotton Club, White Nights alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov, Running Scared, Tap and Waiting to Exhale. On television, he starred in his own series in 1997 called The Gregory Hines Show on CBS, as well as in the recurring role of Ben Doucette on Will & Grace. In 1999, Hines made his return to television with Nick Jr.’s Little Bill, as the voice of Big Bill in which he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer In An Animated Program.
Hines made his Broadway debut with his brother in The Girl in Pink Tights in 1954. He earned Tony Award nominations for Eubie! (1979), Comin’ Uptown (1980) and Sophisticated Ladies (1981), and won the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for Jelly’s Last Jam (1992) and the Theatre World Award for Eubie!. In 1989, Gregory Hines created “Gregory Hines’ Tap Dance in America,” which he also hosted. The PBS special featured seasoned tap dancers such as Savion Glover and Bunny Briggs. He also co-hosted the Tony Awards ceremony in 1995 and 2002.
In 1990, Hines visited with his idol, Sammy Davis, Jr., as he was dying of throat cancer, unable to speak. After Davis died, an emotional Hines spoke at Davis’s funeral of how Sammy had made a gesture to him, “as if passing a basketball … and I caught it.” Hines spoke of the honor that Sammy thought that Hines could carry on from where he left off.
Hines was an avid improviser. He did a lot of improvisation of tap steps, tap sounds, and tap rhythms alike. His improvisation was like that of a drummer, doing a solo and coming up with all sorts of rhythms. He also improvised the phrasing of a number of tap steps that he would come up with, mainly based on sound produced. A laid back dancer, he usually wore nice pants and a loose-fitting shirt. Although he inherited the roots and tradition of the black rhythmic tap, he also influenced the new black rhythmic tap, as a proponent. “‘He purposely obliterated the tempos,’ wrote tap historian Sally Sommer, ‘throwing down a cascade of taps like pebbles tossed across the floor. In that moment, he aligned tap with the latest free-form experiments in jazz and new music and postmodern dance.'”
Throughout his career, Hines wanted to and continued to be an advocate for tap in America. In 1988, he successfully petitioned the creation of National Tap Dance Day, which is now celebrated in 40 cities in the United States. It is also celebrated in eight other nations. Gregory Hines was on the Board of Directors of Manhattan Tap, he was a member of the Jazz Tap Ensemble, and a member of the American Tap Foundation (formerly the American Tap Dance Orchestra). He was a good teacher, influencing tap dance artists Savion Glover, Dianne Walker, Ted Levy, and Jane Goldberg.
In an interview with The New York Times in 1988, Hines said that everything he did was influenced by his dancing–“my singing, my acting, my lovemaking, my being a parent.
Hines died of liver cancer at 57, on August 9, 2003, en route to hospital from his home in Los Angeles. He had been diagnosed with the disease more than a year earlier but had informed only his closest friends. At the time of his death, he was engaged to Negrita Jayde. Hines is interred at Saint Volodymyr’s Ukrainian Orthodox Cemetery in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, the country in which he met Negrita. Negrita, who died in 2009, is buried next to him.
Gregory Hines Solo Tap Scene White Nights
Fit As A Fiddle: Steve Martin & Gregory Hines
Gregory and Maurice Hines in the Cotton Club
Fun Facts about Mr. Gregory Hines
He and Maurice Hines were cast as brothers in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club (1984), set in the Harlem club where their grandmother had been one of the elite black entertainers performing for a whites-only audience in the twenties and thirties. Coppola encouraged the brothers to improvise so they based one scene on their real-life reunion in “Eubie!” and admitted the tears were real.
In the late ’60s he decided to try his hand at performing rock ‘n’ roll music, and writing his own songs.
Was aged six when he and brother Maurice Hines performed, as the Hines Kids, at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem.
Had his professional debut when only 5 years old.
When he was in his twenties he worked on a farm.
Was considered for the part of “Winston Zeddemore” in Ghostbusters (1984).
Hines made his feature film debut in Mel Brooks’ History of the World: Part I (1981). He was a last minute replacement for Richard Pryor, who had to cancel his appearance in the movie due to his freebasing accident.
Won Broadway’s 1992 Tony Award as Best Actor (Musical) for “Jelly’s Last Jam,” for which he also shared a Best Choreographer nomination with Hope Clarke and Ted L. Levy. He was also nominated for Tonys three other times: as Best Actor (Featured Role – Musical) in 1979 for “Eubie!”, which he recreated in the television version with the same title, Eubie! (1981); ; and as Best Actor (Musical), in 1980 for “Comin’ Uptown” and in 1981 for “Sophisticated Ladies.”
In 1954 he and brother Maurice Hines they were cast in the Broadway musical “The Girl in the Pink Tights”.
He had a reunion with brother Maurice Hines when they were both hired for the Broadway musical, “Eubie!” in 1978. It earned him a Tony nomination, as did his role in another musical, “Sophisticated Ladies”.
His own stage show took him from New York’s Bottom Line to spots as far-flung as Atlantic City, Las Vegas, Japan and Monte Carlo.
Inducted into the International Tap Dance Hall of Fame in 2004.
MFA Monday typically centers on musings from local holders of Master of Fine Arts, but for this series we’ve got something a little different! For the next three weeks we will get to hear from a contributor all the way from California…drrrrum rrrolll please:
Part 1 of 3
As I sit here trying to figure out how to start writing about my experience in graduate school, I am becoming keenly aware of my many mixed feelings about my time there and my time since. So here is to hoping that whatever comes out here makes some sort of sense, for me if no one else.
First let me say that if I could go back and do it all again, I would have waited a few years after undergrad before going to graduate school. I started my doctorate at age 22, immediately after completing my BFA. A lot happened in the subsequent five years of my life while I was in school and working on my dissertation. Your early twenties are incredibly formative years, but I wouldn’t know because I spent them ALL in school. So all I know is how formative graduate school can be.
The moment I learned that a field called “Dance Studies” existed, something in me shifted. Growing up with parents who were teachers and in an academically rigorous community, I have always enjoyed traditional learning. But dance was always my passion. Until college, I thought the two things existed separately.
Although I have danced since I was a child, I’ve never thought of myself as much of an artist. When I was given the choice to write a thesis or choreograph a concert for my Senior Project in undergrad, I only considered the concert option for about 15 seconds. I wanted to write. I was interested in the research process and wanted to be a part of something that blew people’s minds the way Dance Studies did for me when I was 19. After dancing and thinking separately for two decades, I was excited to discover a place where both worked together. I’m not suggesting that choreographing and performing doesn’t require both activities simultaneously, because it certainly does. For me, growing up dancing meant just replicating with no thinking. And while I logically understand that both can, and do, happen in the same body at the same time, I am not sure I have ever fully understood how to make that happen for myself. Even to this day, I don’t fancy myself much of an artist and am incredibly insecure about my own artistic process and choreographic product. But give me a page and I will write! Give me an inspired theoretical text and I will happily analyze movement! In fact, at my going away party before I moved for grad school, I remember a conversation with a dear girlfriend and brilliant choreographer. She couldn’t quite understand why I was choosing to subject myself to even more schooling immediately after graduation. I remember telling her, “I want to be able to write about what you do. I want help people know it exists and remember that it exists for the rest of time.” So when I was 22, that was my plan: To write. About dance. Beyond that, I had no idea what graduate school and a doctorate in dance meant. This should have been my first clue…
I was excited for the letters after my name. I was excited because it sounded cool. But, frankly, the whole thing was hardly planned. I applied because it came recommended from a trusted mentor and I didn’t have any other plans. I honestly didn’t think I’d get in. In retrospect, I wish I hadn’t. I wish I could have taken an extra year to work, even if it meant working as a caterer, to think about life, about myself, and what I wanted in my future. I could have read more, increased my vocabulary, and written more. I would have interacted with more people, learn what life was like outside of that of a full-time student, and simply enjoyed a moment in my 20s before real life became too permanent and demanding.
I think that year in between would have helped me avoid the panic attack I had the third week of classes. Towards the end of a seminar, in a small and crowded room, after trying to stay calm for several weeks, the realization that I simply had no idea what I was doing came flooding over me. It turns out everyone in graduate programs are REALLY smart (usually). It’s like having a class full of only the smart kids that raise their hands. Let me clarify, it’s not “like” that, it is that. This is really intimidating for the quiet 22 year old who is keenly aware of her own inexperience. So in that moment, I couldn’t figure out why I’d moved away from everything I knew. I couldn’t figure out how I came to sit in a room with so many people who were so much smarter than me. I was convinced that I’d never succeed, that I’d possibly even truly fail for the first time ever. Suddenly, the classroom door got farther and farther away, the tears welled up and I realized that I would not get through graduate school without crying in public…
Now, I’m not suggesting that a year serving food and working for minimum wage would have kept me from crying in graduate school, but I do think it would have made me more confident and more self-assured. I think I could have come in with a better perspective of the world and not one developed solely from books and research. Or maybe even a master’s program would have helped. I thought I was on the fast-track because I was special, smarter than the average bear. And I might have been. But no matter how good I felt when I got that acceptance letter, no matter how smart I may have been in undergrad, I found myself in a room with a collection of people that still, to this day, are the smartest people I know, with more experience, more knowledge, and more skill than I had in that moment. If there is one thing I am confident in in life, it’s my intelligence. But graduate school is NOT real life. These people were/are really brilliant. I was too inexperienced to have confidence in my own intelligence in that moment (and many more to follow).
The one thing I wish someone had told me before I went to school was: “Wait, not yet, maybe next year.” Graduate school is only what you make of it, so be sure you have all the tools and resources you might need to get the most out of it. It’s like trying to paint the walls before you’ve done the primer. It’ll get done, but the color could be sharper and last longer if you prime it first.
Stay tuned for more from Dr. Alexis Weisbord!
Dr. Alexis A. Weisbord received her BFA in Dance from University of Minnesota and her PhD in Critical Dance Studies from UC Riverside. Alexis was a competitive dancer in high school and later spent over ten years directing dance competitions throughout the US. Her dissertation was entitled “Redefining Dance: Competition Dance in the United States” and she has a chapter, “Defining Dance, Creating Commodity: The Rhetoric of So You Think You Can Dance,” in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen. Alexis has held positions as Lecturer in Global Studies at UC Riverside and Associate Faculty in Dance at Norco College. Currently she is an Associate Faculty member at Mt. San Jacinto College, Managing Director for The PGK Dance Project in San Diego, and founder/co-director of an emerging dance company, Alias Movement.
This is one that both kids and adults will love and it is a wonderful alternative to fried chicken tenders and fast food chicken nuggets.
The chicken is coated with a mixture of almonds, whole wheat pastry flour and spices. You simply coat the chicken, bake in the oven, and there you have it!
Pair them with a side of roasted sweet potatoes and some veggies and you have a perfect well balanced meal that we have everyone saying YUM!!!
Ingredients
1/2 cup Almonds
1/4 cup Whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 teaspoon Paprika
1/2 teaspoon Garlic Powder
1/4 teaspoon Salt
1/8 teaspoon Pepper
1 1/2 teaspoon Olive Oil
3 large Egg Whites
1lb Chicken Breast Tenders
Directions
Step 1: Preheat oven to 475 degrees and line a baking sheet with foil. Place a wire rack on the baking sheet and spray with cooking oil.
Step 2: Place almonds, whole wheat pastry flour, paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper in food processor and blend until almonds are finely chopped, about 1 minute.Add in the olive oil while processor is running and blend together until well combined.Transfer almond mixture to a shallow dish.
Step 3: In a bowl, whisk 3 egg whites together and add chicken tenders.
Step 4: Transfer each tender to the almond mixture and coat both sides well.Place breaded chicken onto wire rack.
Step 5: Bake for 20-25 minutes or until no longer pink in the center.
Step 6: Pair these up with a little bit of ketchup (high fructose corn syrup free) and a plate full of veggies and you have a well balanced meal that both kids and adults will love.
Eat Well and Be Well:)
Jill Tarpey is leading us Wednesday by Wednesday into making better food choices and being more healthful. Tune in every Wednesday to get some great recipes and advice from someone who really knows health. In an effort to fuel her passion to serve as well has enhance the lives of others through their nutritional choices, she started Eat Well SA(San Antonio). Her vision is to educate you on how to incorporate a healthy array of foods into your life. Eat Well is not a diet, nor does it embrace any one specific dietary agenda. She also offers customized programs that are educational and teach you the tools you need to maintain healthy, well balanced eating for your busy lives.
I have the privilege of dancing in Interartist Mark Hirsch‘s master’s thesis at Rice University this spring. You probably know him as composer of Quiver (April 2013) and collaborator on FM (Diverse Works July 2013). You know we love the technology stuff here, and I’m super pumped that he is creating a blog to take all of us through his development of the installation. It’s pretty amazing.
Mark writes:
“..I’ve starting testing some of the technology that will be an integral part of my master’s thesis. The piece (an interactive work for dancer–Lydia Hance of the baller-status Frame Dance Productions–, film, and music) will utilize image tracking of the dancer to control the playback of the film and music. Elements of her movement, such as velocity, position/depth, gesture recognition, etc., will tell the old 8mm projectors how fast to play the film as well as the direction.
The music playback will follow suit–drawing on a vast library of pre-recorded material to tailor the music to the exact moment and motion of the dancer.
Here is a little preliminary test to make sure the motion tracking (Processing) is getting along nicely with the audio side of things (Max/MSP).”
If I had to give up either acting or dancing, I’d choose to keep dancing.
Charisse was born as Tula Ellice Finklea in Amarillo, Texas, the daughter of Lela (née Norwood) and Ernest Enos Finklea, Sr., who was a jeweler. Her nickname “Sid” was taken from a sibling trying to say “Sis”. (It was later spelled “Cyd” at MGM to give her an air of mystery.) She was a sickly girl who started dancing lessons at six to build up her strength after a bout with polio. At 12, she studied ballet in Los Angeles with Adolph Bolm and Bronislava Nijinska, and at 14, she auditioned for and subsequently danced in the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo as “Felia Siderova”[5][6] and, later, “Maria Istomina”.
The outbreak of World War II led to the breakup of the company, and when Charisse returned to Los Angeles, David Lichine offered her a dancing role in Gregory Ratoff’s Something to Shout About. This brought her to the attention of choreographer Robert Alton – who had also discovered Gene Kelly – and soon she joined the Freed Unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she became the resident MGM ballet dancer. In an early role, she had her first speaking part supporting Judy Garland in the 1946 film The Harvey Girls. Charisse was principally celebrated for her onscreen pairings with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. She first appeared with Astaire in a brief routine in Ziegfeld Follies (produced in 1944 and released in 1946). Her next appearance with him was as the lead female role in The Band Wagon (1953), where she danced with Astaire in the acclaimed “Dancing in the Dark” and “Girl Hunt Ballet” routines.
As Debbie Reynolds was not a trained dancer, Gene Kelly chose Charisse to partner with him in the celebrated “Broadway Melody” ballet finale from Singin’ in the Rain (1952), and she co-starred with Kelly in 1954’s Scottish-themed musical film Brigadoon. She again took the lead female role alongside Kelly in his penultimate MGM musical It’s Always Fair Weather (1956).
In 1957, she rejoined Astaire in the film version of Silk Stockings, a musical remake of 1939’s Ninotchka, with Charisse taking over Greta Garbo’s role. In his autobiography, Astaire paid tribute to Charisse, calling her “beautiful dynamite” and writing: “That Cyd! When you’ve danced with her you stay danced with.” She had a slightly unusual serious acting role in Party Girl (1958), where she played a showgirl who became involved with gangsters and a crooked lawyer, although it did include two dance routines.
In her autobiography, Charisse reflected on her experience with Astaire and Kelly: “As one of the handful of girls who worked with both of those dance geniuses, I think I can give an honest comparison. In my opinion, Kelly is the more inventive choreographer of the two. Astaire, with Hermes Pan’s help, creates fabulous numbers – for himself and his partner. But Kelly can create an entire number for somebody else … I think, however, that Astaire’s coordination is better than Kelly’s … his sense of rhythm is uncanny. Kelly, on the other hand, is the stronger of the two. When he lifts you, he lifts you! … To sum it up, I’d say they were the two greatest dancing personalities who were ever on-screen. But it’s like comparing apples and oranges. They’re both delicious.”
After the decline of the Hollywood musical in the late 1950s, Charisse retired from dancing but continued to appear in film and TV productions from the 1960s through the 1990s. She had a supporting role in Something’s Got to Give (1962), the last, unfinished film of Marilyn Monroe. She made cameo appearances in Blue Mercedes’s “I Want to Be Your Property” (1987) and Janet Jackson’s “Alright” (1990) music videos. Her last film appearance was in 1994 in That’s Entertainment! III as one of the onscreen narrators of a tribute to the great MGM musical films.
The Band Wagon
Silk Stockings
The Broadway Medley from Singing in the Rain
Facts About Miss Cyd Charisse
Took her name Cyd from a nickname originated from her brother. Initially, he could not say sister and called her Sid. She took the nickname and convinced her agent to keep the name with the present spelling. He feared that Sid was too masculine.
Grew up in the Texas dust-bowl town of Amarillo. Her Baptist jeweler father, a closet balletomane, encouraged her to begin her ballet lessons for health reasons.
She danced with the Ballet Russe using the names Maria Istomina and Felia Sidorova.
Although one of the greatest female dancers in the history of the movie musical, her singing in films was almost always dubbed, most notably by Carol Richards in Brigadoon (1954) and a young Vikki Carr in The Silencers (1966).
In 1952, she had a $5-million insurance policy accepted on her legs.
Lost out on two of MGM’s biggest movie musical roles. She fell and injured her knee during a dance leap on a film which forced her out of the role of Nadina Hale in Easter Parade (1948). Ann Miller replaced her. She also had to relinquish the lead femme role in An American in Paris (1951) due to pregnancy. Leslie Caron took over the part and became a star.
Unlike many top female dancers in the era of movie musicals, she was trained as a ballerina in the Russian tradition.
During a family vacation in Los Angeles when she was 12, her parents enrolled her in ballet classes at a school in Hollywood. One of her teachers was Nico Charisse.
Said her husband could tell who she had been dancing with that day on an MGM set. If she came home covered with bruises on her, it was the very physically demanding Gene Kelly, if not it was the smooth and agile Fred Astaire.
Fred Astaire, in his 1959 memoir “Steps in Time”, referred to Cyd as “beautiful dynamite”.
Got her start in Hollywood when Ballet Russe star David Lichine was hired by Columbia for a ballet sequence in the musical film Something to Shout About (1943). Cyd, who was then billed as Lily Norwood, appeared in the scene and attracted attention. Movie offers, including a dancing role opposite Astaire in Ziegfeld Follies (1945), led to a seven-year contract offer by MGM.
She was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame in March 2002 in Austin, Texas.
One of the few actresses to have danced with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in the movies, other actresses that have also done this includes Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth, Vera-Ellen, Debbie Reynolds and Leslie Caron.
One of the few, if not only, world-renowned prima ballerinas to be featured in a popular hip-hop music video. She had a cameo in “Alright” (1990) by Janet Jackson.
She was an honorary member of the National Federation of Republican Women along with Laraine Day, Rhonda Fleming and Coleen Gray.
Although she is interred in a niche at Hillside Memorial Park, a well-known Jewish cemetery in Los Angeles, Charrise was in fact a practicing Methodist. Her funeral was even presided by Dr. Gary Allen Dicky, pastor of the United Methodist Church of Westlake Village.
What an exciting process to listen to all of the compositions submitted to the 2014 Frame Dance Composition Competition. We are honored by your interest and inspired by the work that is being created by composers right now. I can certainly understand how much goes into the creation of new work, and I truly value artists who seek new collaborations. After listening to all of the submissions, we have selected three compositions by three composers to be the basis of the next live performance by Frame Dance Productions. We also selected a composition for the score of our upcoming dance film to premiere this summer. Details and updates on these premiers will be here on the Frame Dance blog. The winners are:
cliff nesting, for alto saxophone with the sounds of Black-legged Kittiwakes near Seward, Alaska
*Frame Dance is currently in production for an upcoming film, and has selected cliff nesting, as the musical score for the film
About the Winners
Robert Honstein
Celebrated for his “roiling, insistent orchestral figuration” (New York Times) and “glittery, percussive pieces” (Toronto Globe and Mail), composer Robert Honstein (b. 1980) is a composer of orchestral, chamber, and vocal music.
His works have been performed throughout North America by ensembles such as the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, the New York Youth Symphony, the Albany Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble ACJW, Ensemble Dal Niente, the Mivos quartet, the Del Sol Quartet, Concert Black, TIGUE, and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, among others. He has received an Aaron Copland Award, multiple ASCAP awards and other honors from SCI, Carnegie Hall, and New Music USA. He has also received residencies at Copland House, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, I-Park, the Bang on a Can Summer Institute, and the Tanglewood Music Center.
Robert co-produces Fast Forward Austin, an annual marathon new music concert in Austin, TX and is a founding member of the New York based composer collective Sleeping Giant. Upcoming projects include commissions for cellist Ashley Bathgate, a consortium of pianists for a solo piano work, and a new work for eighth blackbird as part of a collaborative project with Sleeping Giant. He is also composer-in-residence, along with his Sleeping Giant colleagues, with the Albany Symphony Orchestra, as part of a Music Alive grant from New Music USA and the League of American Orchestras. He studied composition at the Yale School of Music.
Matthew Peterson is a composer exploring frontiers of sound and expression.
Praised for his “considerable imagination and individuality” (Houston Chronicle), his music is “fresh and passionate…beautiful, challenging” (BBC Berkshire), Commissioned and performed by musicians and ensembles around the world, his compositions feature vivid orchestrations, rhythmic vibrancy, clarity of expression, and emotional depth. Matthew’s expansive output ranges from a ballad opera based on Wisconsin court cases, to modern settings of sacred texts, to stunning orchestral soundscapes.
Matthew has received awards, grants, and recognitions from the Fulbright Program, BMI, ASCAP, Manhattan Beach Music, the Minnesota Orchestra, Musik i Uppland, Third Angle ensemble, New Lens concert series, Opera Vista, North-South Consonance, National Opera Association, vocal ensemble Chanticleer, Aldworth Philharmonic Orchestra, Forth Worth Opera, and Vocal Essence. Matthew’s orchestra work Dawn: Redeeming, Radiant was recently featured on American Public Media’s Performance Today., and broadcast on NPR stations across the United States.
Commissioned and performed by musicians and ensembles in the United States, England, and Sweden, over fifty of Peterson’ works have been performed across North America and Europe. His broad output includes two award-winning chamber operas, seven orchestral scores, an oratorio, numerous choral works, pieces for soloists, chamber ensembles, and electronic media, and post-rock songs for his band in Sweden.
The 2013-14 season features the premiere of Badlands by Freya String Quartet (Pittsburgh), the professional premiere of Dawn: Redeeming, Radiant by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the premiere of Mass for soprano and percussion by Sonja Tengblad and John Hess (Boston), the premiere of The River for orchestra and chorus by Grand Forks Central High School (ND), the premiere of A Winged Heart by the University of North Dakota band, the premiere of And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands by the Uppsala Chamber Orchestra, and performances of Näcken for violin, Bound and Unbound for piano, and other works by artists and ensembles including InnoVox, Alejandro Drago, North-South Consonance, and New Music Conflagration. Matthew is currently composing an evening-length work for Canadian pianist and multi-media troubadour Kati Gleiser.
Matthew was born in 1984 in Grand Forks, North Dakota. He is a freelance composer living in Stockholm, Sweden.
Jonathan Russell is a composer, clarinetist, conductor, and educator, whose work has been hailed as “incredibly virtuosic, rocking, and musical” (San Francisco Classical Voice) and “a fantastically distorted perpetual motion of awesome” (I Care If You Listen). Especially known for his innovative bass clarinet and clarinet ensemble compositions, his works for bass clarinet duo, bass clarinet quartet, bass clarinet soloists, and clarinet ensembles have been performed around the world and are radically expanding the technical and stylistic possibilities of these genres.
Jonathan has received commissions from ensembles such as the San Francisco Symphony, Empyrean Ensemble, ADORNO Ensemble, Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, Wild Rumpus, Great Noise Ensemble, and Imani Winds, and performances from numerous other ensembles and performers, including the Berkeley Symphony, Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, So Percussion, Third Coast Percussion, the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, The Living Earth Show, DZ4, the BluePrint Project, REDSHIFT, Roomful of Teeth, Ensemble Avalon, Twiolins, the new music bands FIREWORKS, Capital M, and Oogog, pianist-percussionist Danny Holt, and pianists Sarah Cahill, Lisa Moore, Lara Downes, Matthew McCright, Kate Campbell, and Regina Schaffer. His works are published by Potenza Music Publishing, BCP Music, and Peer Music, and his music has been recorded by the Sqwonk bass clarinet duo, the Kairos Consort, pianist Jeffrey Jacob, The Living Earth show, and Imani Winds. Upcoming projects include commissions from New Keys to write a piece for five pianists and five percussionists, and a clarinet-cello double concerto for the Peninsula Symphony.
An avid performer on clarinet and bass clarinet, Jonathan is a member of the heavy metal-inspired Edmund Welles bass clarinet quartet and the Sqwonk bass clarinet duo, which has commissioned numerous new works and released two CDs of new American bass clarinet duets. He has appeared as soloist with the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, the West Point Military Academy Band, Harvard’s Bach Society Orchestra, the Woodstock Chamber Orchestra, the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra, the Great Noise Ensemble, the NakedEye Ensemble, and the Omaha Symphonic Winds. He has been a member of the new music ensemble Hotel Elefant, and has appeared as clarinetist with the Marin Symphony, Ensemble Parallele, the Great Noise Ensemble, REDSHIFT, and the klezmer bands Zoyres, Machaya, and Adama. He is co-founder of the Switchboard Music Festival, an annual eight-hour marathon concert that brings together the San Francisco Bay Area’s most creative and innovative composers and performers.
Jonathan frequently conducts his own compositions, as well as premieres of works by student and emerging composers. He has appeared as guest conductor with the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra, the Switchboard Music Festival, the Johns Hopkins Clarinet Choir, the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra, the Los Angeles Clarinet Choir, and the Claremont Clarinet Festival, where he was the 2011 and 2013 Artist-in-Residence.
A dedicated educator, Jonathan has served on the Music Theory Faculty at San Francisco Conservatory and on the Composition Faculty at the Conservatory’s Adult Extension and Preparatory Divisions. With Sqwonk and Edmund Welles, he has led workshops in Composition and Bass Clarinet Performance at San Francisco Conservatory, Princeton University, Catholic University, UCLA, Cornell University, Ithaca College, UT Austin, Berkeley High School, the Vandoren Clarinet Ensemble Festival, and the Claremont Clarinet Festival.
Jonathan has served as Music Director for two dance productions with choreographers Janice Garrett and Charles Moulton. His work on their June 2011 production, The Experience of Flight in Dreams, earned him a nomination for an Isadora Duncan Dance Award in the category of “Outstanding Achievement in Music/Sound/Text.” He has a B.A. in Music from Harvard University and an M.M. in Music Composition from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. His primary composition teachers have included Paul Lansky, Dmitri Tymoczko, Dan Trueman, Barbara White, Steve Mackey, Dan Becker, Elinor Armer, Eric Sawyer, John Stewart, and Eric Ewazen. His clarinet teachers have included Janet Greene, Alan Kay, and Jo-Ann Sternberg. He is currently a PhD Candidate in the composition program at Princeton University.
D. Edward Davis (b. 1980) is a composer of electronic and acoustic music. His work engages with the sounds of the environment, exploring processes, patterns, and systems inspired by nature.
Recent performers of his work include violinist Erik Carlson, pianist Ingrid Lee, Rootstock Percussion Trio, the Wet Ink Ensemble, and members of the Perlman Music Program. His compositions are featured on a Spectropol Records compilation (Possible Worlds, Vol. 2) and on recent recordings by Eric Honour (Phantasm: Music for Saxophone and Computer) and Erik Carlson (Music for Violin).
Recent performances include: A Theory of Colours, a collaboration with artist Lisa McCarty performed by the Wet Ink Ensemble in April 2013; retaining wall, performed by the IOTA Ensemble at the 2013 I/O Fest (Williamstown, MA); coo coo, performed by the Wild Rumpus New Music Collective in November 2012; two songs, sung by Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek at Duke University in March 2012; windthrow, performed by Rootstock Percussion Trio in February 2012 at the Other Minds Festival (San Francisco, CA); basin/range and coo coo, played by the Wet Ink Ensemble in February and April 2012; The Alchemical Room, a collaboration with video artists Madeleine Gallagher and Adam Savje, which was performed at Roulette (NYC, NY) in May 2010; and estuary (for quintet and electronics), which was performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC, NY) in February 2010 by members of The Perlman Music Program.
Davis has been the Director of Contemporary Music at The Perlman Music Program‘s Summer Music School since 2010. He is currently in the PhD program at Duke University, where he studies composition with Scott Lindroth and John Supko. He also has degrees from Brooklyn College (Master of Music, 2006) and Northwestern University (Bachelor of Music, 2002), and his former teachers include David Grubbs, Amnon Wolman, Amy Williams, and Jay Alan Yim.
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