Dance Me a Song: Astaire, Balanchine, Kelly, and the American Film Musical

Dance Me a Song provides lively and necessary scholarship for all dance enthusiasts.. George Balanchine, she argues, also plays an important part in this story, from his until now unrecognized collaborations with Vernon Duke and Vincente Minnelli to develop the "jazz ballet" form on Broadway (TheZiegfeld Follies of 1936 and his choreography for On Your Toes, 1936), to the 1939 film version of On Your Toes and the dance sequences he directed with Greg Toland for the Hollywood movie The Goldwyn Follies (1938). Dance Me a Song traces the history of famous Hollywood collaborations as the palimpsest of dance, film, and musical techniques were developed over time. Busby Berkeley, whose moving camera techniques according to Gene Kelly "broke down the proscenium frame of the stage" for American dancers, forms a key part of the picture, as do early experimental French directors like René Clair and European immigrants to Hollywood Ernst Lubitsch and Rouben Mamoulian. Author Beth Genné draws on the most well-known and influential musical dances of the first half of the century, from the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers' series in the thirt

Beth Genné is Professor of Dance History and Art History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She was Director of research for Balanchine's musical films for the Popular Balanchine Project of the George Balanchine Foundation.

About the AuthorBeth Genné is Professor of Dance History and Art History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She was Director of research for Balanchine's musical films for the Popular Balanchine Project of the George Balanchine Foundation.