November Birthdays!

Happy 117th Birthday Busby Berkeley!

 by Katelyn Alcott

This month, on November 29th, we are celebrating the birthday of one of Hollywood's greatest musical choreographers.

Prior to his illustrious career in choreography, Berkley put to use his great talent for direction during his service in World War I. There, Berkley was in charge of the direction of parades. His background in this field would prove useful to him after his return to America, at the close of the war. Berkley stumbled across his directing career rather by chance. Having started out as a stage actor and assistant director in small scale productions, he suddenly found himself in the position of director for the musical "Holka-Polka". It was during this production that Berkley realized his natural ability for large scale dance choreography. From here, his Broadway career took-off, choreographing several productions for Ziegfeld.

As his career carried him to Hollywood Berkley grew skeptic of the way things were produced there. Although choreographers would stage and teach their own numbers all aspects of camera belonged to the director. Berkley, wishing to try his chances at mastering the camera side of his work as well, and convinced all of his directors to allow him to be in charge of what was filmed and shown on screen. Berkley was always finding new and innovative ways to film the beautiful scenes he depicted. He was also one of the first to show close up images of the girls during the film

One of Berkley's most famous works was the production of Warner Brothers "42nd Street". The production was such a success that Warner Brothers signed him for a seven year contract. 

A little known fact about Busby Berkley is that he never once took a dancing lesson! 

Here are some links for more information:

NY Times Article
Some of his work:
By a water fall 1933
I only have eyes for you
Dames
The Lady in the Tutti Fruitti Hat

Happy November Birthdays!

We are always grateful for every one of the amazing people who support Monkeyhouse and November is filled with birthdays for many of those people.  Don't forget to send your love to:

Eva Dean, Donna Rosenberg, Jon Taft, Ryan P. Casey, Courtney Wagner, Rick Frank, Remy Marin, Aaron Copland, Benjamin Britten, Alexander Godunov, Mandy Patinkin

If you don't know who all these fabulous people are make sure you take a minute to check out some of the links!  Whether they are famous choreographers or local supporters our birthday boys and girls do some really amazing things.

Want to be on the birthday list?  Click here to update your info and let us know when your birthday is!

Getting to Know Tony Waag-- Part II

by Nicole Harris

As Tony Waag's TAP CITY Festival kicks off today, I wanted to take a moment to share with you another part of my interview with Tony from this winter.  Keep an eye out this week for more information about Tony, TAP CITY and Friday's performance (which I'll be dancing in!)

NH:  Who are some of your favorite choreographers?
TW:  Brenda Bufalino, Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, I love Fred Astaire's stuff with Hermes Pan.  I have a really hard time with the word favorite because I really do like variety.  I could say anything from Busby Berkeley to Balanchine.

NH:  Are you doing any performing right now?
TW:  No, not really.  Every once in a while.  I felt bad about that for a while but then I realized that I'm just taking a break.  I didn't feel like performing for a while, so now when I do I totally love it.  I don't NEED to perform, although I might feel the need to perform again.  Eventually there's a conflict.  There just isn't time.  You can't do everything.

NH:  What about choreography?
TW:  No, I would say I'm kind of revisiting choreography.  I have concepts that are going around it my head but I don't get into the studio much.  I have a piece in Thank You, Gregory.  I had never put a solo of my own on anyone else before.  We made it into a duet and I got a kick out of it, seeing my choreography on these two guys.  I changed it a little bit, but it was really just dipping back into it.  You know, you're never really done with a piece.  I'm never satisfied.

NH:  I hear you've been teaching an Absolute Beginner class?
TW:  I just started teaching again and I'm having a ball because it's just so...  I'm fascinated with it, really.  I feel like I'm looking at it completely different than I have before.  You look at these people and think, why can't they figure this out?  And then you think, well maybe if I try this...  After just three or four classes someone that you thought was hopeless has improved by 50%.