Fosse

I know I told a lot of people about this already... but if you haven't seen the Fosse redux watch this.
At LEAST the first 45 sec of both.
It's been a week and I'm still in awe.


The original choreographed to "Mexican Breakfast" (by Johnny Mandel?):


The redux played against "Walk It Out" (by Unk):


I mean, correct me if I am wrong, but am I looking at popping in the 60s here?
As Dave (my boss and husband of a Rockette), this just goes to show how ahead of his time Fosse was.
And I'm sorry! Only YouTube videos of the above were available. Vimeo is still catching up...)

From the choreographer's website Fosse.com:

Born Robert Louis Fosse in Chicago on June 23, 1927, Bob Fosse was the son of a vaudevillian. He himself began performing in vaudeville as a child and by his early teens was on stage in a variety of burlesque shows. He began studying dance at a small neighborhood institution but soon moved on to the Frederick Weaver Ballet School, an academy where he was the only male enrolled.

...

As an artist, Fosse was known for his thoroughly modern style, a signature one could never mistake for anyone else's. Snapping fingers are omnipresent, so are rakishly tilted bowler hats. Both hip and shoulder rolls appear frequently, as do backward exits. Swiveling hips and strutting predominate, as do white-gloved, single-handed gestures. Fosse himself often called the en masse amalgamation of these moves the "amoeba", and that word as much as any describes his particular style, one at once fluid and angular.

Read more ...

Read more on Wikipedia...

Here is one more video with choreography by JaQuel Knight & Frank Gatson (one of them, I've read is actually the dancer who begins on the right) for Beyonce's "Single Ladies" with very similar dancing. In fact, it would seem some of it is straight ripped off the Mexican Breakfast choreography - but again, Fosse is credited with introducing much of the modern pop/hip-hop style.
Her song was also put to Fosse on YouTube, but "Walk It Out" is far better, for more eerily appropriate match.
[Just a little disclaimer: Beyonce is uh... really shakin' it, in heels and unitard. I'd say my blog is PG, but you might not consider this video to be! ;-)]