Dancing

Gene Kelly

My mother was a professional dancer, which meant that from the time my brother and I were very small, we were dancers too.

Now honestly, Matt and I were good for the dance floor at our local disco, but neither of us inherited anything even slightly resembling my mothers grace or skill.

Still, a nice thing about being raised to love dancing from such a young age, is that it has helped me to develop a enjoyment of dancing in almost any form. I don't care if it's ballet of square dancing, watching people move with grace and style has always been a thrill for me.

So on that note let's watch some dancing..........

Let's start out with something modern.

Check out this talented young street performer in Paris.

What I love about him, and to be honest, something I love about all good dancers, is just how easy they make these amazingly difficult moves look.


Next, here's a fantastic, bouncy clip of a roomful of folks in the mid-1950's doing their very best Lindy Hop, with none other than Bill Haley and His Comets as the band....

A bit more modern, but also way more exotic, the huge cast of thousands dance scenes in the films coming out of Bollywood are always just awesome to watch, and inevitably makes me wish that our heroic action stars would break out in song and dance every once in awhile.

Then again, I remember Bruce Willis and his Bruno stage and I think we're better off leaving this kind of thing to the professionals...

In the 90's one of the biggest traveling shows of the era was the mega-hit Riverdance.

Michael Flatley and Jean Butler took Celtic step dancing to a whole new level and managed to capture the attention of the whole world while doing it.

Next up , here's a look back at some of the great dancing we'd see every week on the greatest show on 1970's television, Soul Train.

Here's Don Cornelius, introducing the kids, and with Curtis Mayfield playing, the funk goes down....

I really love this clip from David Byrne's wonderful love letter to average Americans, True Stories. In it we get everything from modern ballet to cab dancing, and Pop's Staples, just boogieing.

My favorite Hollywood dancer has always been the great Gene Kelly.

To close, here is a great piece with Gene dancing while wearing roller skates fro the 1955 film, Always Fair Weather...

Kelly, is always a treat to watch.