Astaire Dancing

A Dance with Fred Astaire covers the 94 years Mekas has spent weaving himself inextricably into the fabric of postwar culture, featuring a dizzying cast of cultural icons both underground and mainstream.

Astaire by Numbers looks at every second of dancing Fred Astaire committed to film in the studio era--all six hours, thirty-four minutes, and fifty seconds. Using a quantitative digital humanities approach, as well as previously untapped production records, author Todd Decker takes the reader onto the set and into the rehearsal halls and editing rooms where Astaire created his seemingly perfect film dances. Watching closely in this way reveals how Astaire used the technically sophisticated resources of the Hollywood film making machine to craft a singular career in mass entertainment as a straight white man who danced. Decker dissects Astaire's work at the level of the shot, the cut, and the dance step to reveal the aesthetic and practical choices that yielded Astaire's dancing figure on screen. He offers new insights into how Astaire secured his masculinity and his heterosexuality, along with a new understanding of Astaire's whiteness, which emerges in both the sheer extent of his work and the larger implications of his famous "full figure" framing of his dancing body. Astaire by Numbers rethinks this towering straight white male figure from the ground up by digging deeply into questions of race, gender, and sexuality, ultimately offering a complete re-assessment of a twentieth-century icon of American popular culture.

Joseph Epstein’s Fred Astaire investigates the great dancer’s magical talent, taking up the story of his life, his personality, his work habits, his modest pretensions, and above all his accomplishments. Written with the wit and grace the subject deserves, Fred Astaire provides a remarkable portrait of this extraordinary artist and how he came to embody for Americans a fantasy of easy elegance and, paradoxically, of democratic aristocracy.Tracing Astaire’s life from his birth in Omaha to his death in his late eighties in Hollywood, the book discusses his early days with his talented and outspoken sister Adele, his gifts as a singer (Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, and Jerome Kern all delighted in composing for Astaire), and his many movie dance partners, among them Cyd Charisse, Rita Hayworth, Eleanor Powell, and Betty Hutton. A key chapter of the book is devoted to Astaire’s somewhat unwilling partnership with Ginger Rogers, the woman with whom he danced most dazzlingly. What emerges from these pages is a fascinating view of an American era, seen through the accomplishments of Fred Astaire, an unassuming but uncompromising performer who transformed entertainment into art and gave America a new yet enduring standard for style.

🌟 Fred Astaire: A Legacy in Motion - Unveiling the Master of Dance and Cinema 🌟 Dive into the captivating world of Fred Astaire, the man who brought elegance and innovation to the silver screen like never before! 🎩💫 This comprehensive ebook, "Fred Astaire: A Legacy in Motion - Unveiling the Master of Dance and Cinema," meticulously crafted by the ChatStick Team, takes you on an unparalleled journey through the life, work, and lasting influence of one of Hollywood's greatest icons. 🕺📚 From his early beginnings in vaudeville to his ascension as a titan of cinema, discover the trials and triumphs of Astaire's storied career. 🎬🌈 Explore his most iconic roles and performances that not only defined a genre but also revolutionized dance on film. Delve into Astaire's off-screen persona, his contributions to the arts, and how his legacy continues to influence artists and entertain audiences around the globe. 🌍❤️ Why You'll Love This Book: 💃 Explore Astaire's groundbreaking dance techniques and cinematic contributions. 🎥 Relive the magic of his most memorable performances and collaborations. 🌟 Discover the man behind the legend - his personal life, style, and impact beyond cinema. 🎶 Be inspired by Astaire's enduring influence on music, fashion, and popular culture. Perfect for fans of classic cinema, dance enthusiasts, and biography lovers alike! Add "Fred Astaire: A Legacy in Motion" to your collection and be inspired by the timeless elegance and relentless creativity of Fred Astaire. 📘🚀

Fred Astaire allows us to see through the effortless balletic exuberance.

Traces the history of famous Hollywood collaborations as the palimpsest of dance, film, and musical techniques were developed over time. Provides lively and necessary scholarship for all dance enthusiasts

Dance’s Duet with the Camera: Motion Pictures is a collection of essays written by various authors on the relationship between live dance and film. Chapters cover a range of topics that explore dance film, contemporary dance with film on stage, dance as an ideal medium to be captured by 3D images and videodance as kin to site-specific choreography. This book explores the ways in which early practitioners such as Loïe Fuller and Maya Deren began a conversation between media that has continued to evolve and yet still retains certain unanswered questions. Methodology for this conversation includes dance historical approaches as well as mechanical considerations. The camera is a partner, a disembodied portion of self that looks in order to reflect on, to mirror, or to presage movement. This conversation includes issues of sexuality, race, and mixed ability. Bodies and lenses share equal billing.