Search results for: "ben vereen"

During a sticky afternoon last summer, fledgling choreographer Grady McLeod Bowman took a break from a New York International Fringe Festival rehearsal to run through the steps he’d just learned as a dancer in the Broadway musical Billy Elliot. Practicing in the narrow hallway, his wide shoulders set firmly above his sturdy 5′ 4″ frame, […]

These days you can’t swing a sequined dress without hitting a dance reality TV show. Every major network has its angle on them: from contestants competing weekly in front of a live audience, to behind-the-scenes looks at the lives of commercial dancers trying to make the cut, to “celebrities” paired with professionals fox-trotting their way […]

Eugene Louis Facciuto’s first career as a lead dancer in Hollywood was destroyed at age 21 by a near-fatal car accident. His doctors predicted that the former child star wouldn’t emerge from his coma, let alone rise again on half-toe. But the Ohio-born dancer rallied to recover and become a chorus staple. During pauses on […]

He’s choreographed for Ben Vereen, Shirley Bassey and those lovable big-eyed Muppets. And, like the film character Billy Elliott who studied ballet against the wishes of a working-class father, this native Liverpudlian got hooked on dance at age 10. He went on to study tap and jazz, contemporary and European folk at the Hylton-Bromley School […]

Best known as the leading interpreter of Bob Fosse’s style of musical theater dance, Anne Reinking made famous her Broadway leads in Dancin’, Sweet Charity, and Chicago. Reinking has worked with many legendary artists, including Katherine Hepburn, Gwen Verdon, Tommy Tune, Joel Grey, Ben Vereen and choreographers Jerome Robbins and Fosse. She won the 1997 […]

Choreographers on their dancers, their inspirations, and why no piece is ever finished. Dance Magazine interviewed 16 choreographers of different ages, styles, and nationalities. We asked four questions. What do you look for in a dancers? how do you know when a work is finished? When you think something is beautiful, what is likely to […]