A Thought-Leader In Family & Children’s Dance Classes | Houston, TX
Frame Dance is a thought leader in dance education, inspiring the next generation of movers, makers, and world changers by offering dance classes for adults & children, multi-generational ensembles, professional performances, networking events, and film festivals. We are nestled between West U and the Museum District.
We believe in developing the whole dancer, teaching critical life skills such as creative thinking, leadership, collaboration, and resilience through our artful and playful dance curriculum at our studio and in partner schools.
Our adult modern dance classes are designed to offer you the joy and magic that’s possible when you create space in your life to move, to grow, and to share in the creative process with a like-hearted community.
For more than ten years, Frame Dance has brought radically inclusive and deeply personal contemporary dance to Houston. Led by Founder and Creative Director Lydia Hance, whom Dance Magazine calls “the city’s reigning guru of dance in public places,” the professional company is made up of six acclaimed co-creators committed to collaboration. Frame Dance has created over 50 unique site-specific performances and nine dances for the camera screened in festivals all over the United States and Europe. With an unrelenting drive to make dance in relationship to environment, Frame Dance has created dance works for and with METRO, Houston Museum of Natural Sciences, Houston Parks Board, Plant It Forward Farms, CORE Dance, Rice University, Houston Ballet, 14 Pews, Aurora Picture Show, and the Contemporary Arts Museum. Frame Dance’s productions were described by Arts + Culture Texas Editor-in-Chief Nancy Wozny as “some of the most compelling and entertaining work in Houston.” Creative Director Lydia Hance is a champion of living composers and is dedicated to work exclusively with new music.
Born in New York City to Maurice Hines Sr. and Alma Hines, Gregory Hines began tapping when he was two years old, and began dancing semi-professionally at the age of five. Since then, he and his older brother Maurice performed together, studying with choreographer Henry LeTang. Gregory and Maurice also learned from veteran tap dancers such as Howard Sims and The Nicholas Brothers whenever they performed in the same venues. The two brothers were known as “The Hines Kids”, making nightclub appearances, and later as “The Hines Brothers”. When their father joined the act as a drummer,the name changed again in 1963 to “Hines, Hines, and Dad”.
Hines performed as the lead singer and musician in a rock band called Severance in the year of 1975-1976 based in Venice, California. Severance was one of the house bands at an original music club called Honky Hoagies Handy Hangout, otherwise known as the 4H Club. In 1986, he sang a duet with Luther Vandross, entitled “There’s Nothing Better Than Love”, which reached the No. 1 position on the Billboard R&B charts.
Hines made his movie debut in Mel Brooks’s History of the World, Part 1. Critics took note of Hines’s comedic charm, and he later appeared in such movies as The Cotton Club, White Nights alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov, Running Scared, Tap and Waiting to Exhale. On television, he starred in his own series in 1997 called The Gregory Hines Show on CBS, as well as in the recurring role of Ben Doucette on Will & Grace. In 1999, Hines made his return to television with Nick Jr.’s Little Bill, as the voice of Big Bill in which he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Performer In An Animated Program.
Hines made his Broadway debut with his brother in The Girl in Pink Tights in 1954. He earned Tony Award nominations for Eubie! (1979), Comin’ Uptown (1980) and Sophisticated Ladies (1981), and won the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for Jelly’s Last Jam (1992) and the Theatre World Award for Eubie!. In 1989, Gregory Hines created “Gregory Hines’ Tap Dance in America,” which he also hosted. The PBS special featured seasoned tap dancers such as Savion Glover and Bunny Briggs. He also co-hosted the Tony Awards ceremony in 1995 and 2002.
In 1990, Hines visited with his idol, Sammy Davis, Jr., as he was dying of throat cancer, unable to speak. After Davis died, an emotional Hines spoke at Davis’s funeral of how Sammy had made a gesture to him, “as if passing a basketball … and I caught it.” Hines spoke of the honor that Sammy thought that Hines could carry on from where he left off.
Hines was an avid improviser. He did a lot of improvisation of tap steps, tap sounds, and tap rhythms alike. His improvisation was like that of a drummer, doing a solo and coming up with all sorts of rhythms. He also improvised the phrasing of a number of tap steps that he would come up with, mainly based on sound produced. A laid back dancer, he usually wore nice pants and a loose-fitting shirt. Although he inherited the roots and tradition of the black rhythmic tap, he also influenced the new black rhythmic tap, as a proponent. “‘He purposely obliterated the tempos,’ wrote tap historian Sally Sommer, ‘throwing down a cascade of taps like pebbles tossed across the floor. In that moment, he aligned tap with the latest free-form experiments in jazz and new music and postmodern dance.'”
Throughout his career, Hines wanted to and continued to be an advocate for tap in America. In 1988, he successfully petitioned the creation of National Tap Dance Day, which is now celebrated in 40 cities in the United States. It is also celebrated in eight other nations. Gregory Hines was on the Board of Directors of Manhattan Tap, he was a member of the Jazz Tap Ensemble, and a member of the American Tap Foundation (formerly the American Tap Dance Orchestra). He was a good teacher, influencing tap dance artists Savion Glover, Dianne Walker, Ted Levy, and Jane Goldberg.
In an interview with The New York Times in 1988, Hines said that everything he did was influenced by his dancing–“my singing, my acting, my lovemaking, my being a parent.
Hines died of liver cancer at 57, on August 9, 2003, en route to hospital from his home in Los Angeles. He had been diagnosed with the disease more than a year earlier but had informed only his closest friends. At the time of his death, he was engaged to Negrita Jayde. Hines is interred at Saint Volodymyr’s Ukrainian Orthodox Cemetery in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, the country in which he met Negrita. Negrita, who died in 2009, is buried next to him.
Gregory Hines Solo Tap Scene White Nights
Fit As A Fiddle: Steve Martin & Gregory Hines
Gregory and Maurice Hines in the Cotton Club
Fun Facts about Mr. Gregory Hines
He and Maurice Hines were cast as brothers in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club (1984), set in the Harlem club where their grandmother had been one of the elite black entertainers performing for a whites-only audience in the twenties and thirties. Coppola encouraged the brothers to improvise so they based one scene on their real-life reunion in “Eubie!” and admitted the tears were real.
In the late ’60s he decided to try his hand at performing rock ‘n’ roll music, and writing his own songs.
Was aged six when he and brother Maurice Hines performed, as the Hines Kids, at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem.
Had his professional debut when only 5 years old.
When he was in his twenties he worked on a farm.
Was considered for the part of “Winston Zeddemore” in Ghostbusters (1984).
Hines made his feature film debut in Mel Brooks’ History of the World: Part I (1981). He was a last minute replacement for Richard Pryor, who had to cancel his appearance in the movie due to his freebasing accident.
Won Broadway’s 1992 Tony Award as Best Actor (Musical) for “Jelly’s Last Jam,” for which he also shared a Best Choreographer nomination with Hope Clarke and Ted L. Levy. He was also nominated for Tonys three other times: as Best Actor (Featured Role – Musical) in 1979 for “Eubie!”, which he recreated in the television version with the same title, Eubie! (1981); ; and as Best Actor (Musical), in 1980 for “Comin’ Uptown” and in 1981 for “Sophisticated Ladies.”
In 1954 he and brother Maurice Hines they were cast in the Broadway musical “The Girl in the Pink Tights”.
He had a reunion with brother Maurice Hines when they were both hired for the Broadway musical, “Eubie!” in 1978. It earned him a Tony nomination, as did his role in another musical, “Sophisticated Ladies”.
His own stage show took him from New York’s Bottom Line to spots as far-flung as Atlantic City, Las Vegas, Japan and Monte Carlo.
Inducted into the International Tap Dance Hall of Fame in 2004.
If I had to give up either acting or dancing, I’d choose to keep dancing.
Charisse was born as Tula Ellice Finklea in Amarillo, Texas, the daughter of Lela (née Norwood) and Ernest Enos Finklea, Sr., who was a jeweler. Her nickname “Sid” was taken from a sibling trying to say “Sis”. (It was later spelled “Cyd” at MGM to give her an air of mystery.) She was a sickly girl who started dancing lessons at six to build up her strength after a bout with polio. At 12, she studied ballet in Los Angeles with Adolph Bolm and Bronislava Nijinska, and at 14, she auditioned for and subsequently danced in the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo as “Felia Siderova”[5][6] and, later, “Maria Istomina”.
The outbreak of World War II led to the breakup of the company, and when Charisse returned to Los Angeles, David Lichine offered her a dancing role in Gregory Ratoff’s Something to Shout About. This brought her to the attention of choreographer Robert Alton – who had also discovered Gene Kelly – and soon she joined the Freed Unit at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she became the resident MGM ballet dancer. In an early role, she had her first speaking part supporting Judy Garland in the 1946 film The Harvey Girls. Charisse was principally celebrated for her onscreen pairings with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly. She first appeared with Astaire in a brief routine in Ziegfeld Follies (produced in 1944 and released in 1946). Her next appearance with him was as the lead female role in The Band Wagon (1953), where she danced with Astaire in the acclaimed “Dancing in the Dark” and “Girl Hunt Ballet” routines.
As Debbie Reynolds was not a trained dancer, Gene Kelly chose Charisse to partner with him in the celebrated “Broadway Melody” ballet finale from Singin’ in the Rain (1952), and she co-starred with Kelly in 1954’s Scottish-themed musical film Brigadoon. She again took the lead female role alongside Kelly in his penultimate MGM musical It’s Always Fair Weather (1956).
In 1957, she rejoined Astaire in the film version of Silk Stockings, a musical remake of 1939’s Ninotchka, with Charisse taking over Greta Garbo’s role. In his autobiography, Astaire paid tribute to Charisse, calling her “beautiful dynamite” and writing: “That Cyd! When you’ve danced with her you stay danced with.” She had a slightly unusual serious acting role in Party Girl (1958), where she played a showgirl who became involved with gangsters and a crooked lawyer, although it did include two dance routines.
In her autobiography, Charisse reflected on her experience with Astaire and Kelly: “As one of the handful of girls who worked with both of those dance geniuses, I think I can give an honest comparison. In my opinion, Kelly is the more inventive choreographer of the two. Astaire, with Hermes Pan’s help, creates fabulous numbers – for himself and his partner. But Kelly can create an entire number for somebody else … I think, however, that Astaire’s coordination is better than Kelly’s … his sense of rhythm is uncanny. Kelly, on the other hand, is the stronger of the two. When he lifts you, he lifts you! … To sum it up, I’d say they were the two greatest dancing personalities who were ever on-screen. But it’s like comparing apples and oranges. They’re both delicious.”
After the decline of the Hollywood musical in the late 1950s, Charisse retired from dancing but continued to appear in film and TV productions from the 1960s through the 1990s. She had a supporting role in Something’s Got to Give (1962), the last, unfinished film of Marilyn Monroe. She made cameo appearances in Blue Mercedes’s “I Want to Be Your Property” (1987) and Janet Jackson’s “Alright” (1990) music videos. Her last film appearance was in 1994 in That’s Entertainment! III as one of the onscreen narrators of a tribute to the great MGM musical films.
The Band Wagon
Silk Stockings
The Broadway Medley from Singing in the Rain
Facts About Miss Cyd Charisse
Took her name Cyd from a nickname originated from her brother. Initially, he could not say sister and called her Sid. She took the nickname and convinced her agent to keep the name with the present spelling. He feared that Sid was too masculine.
Grew up in the Texas dust-bowl town of Amarillo. Her Baptist jeweler father, a closet balletomane, encouraged her to begin her ballet lessons for health reasons.
She danced with the Ballet Russe using the names Maria Istomina and Felia Sidorova.
Although one of the greatest female dancers in the history of the movie musical, her singing in films was almost always dubbed, most notably by Carol Richards in Brigadoon (1954) and a young Vikki Carr in The Silencers (1966).
In 1952, she had a $5-million insurance policy accepted on her legs.
Lost out on two of MGM’s biggest movie musical roles. She fell and injured her knee during a dance leap on a film which forced her out of the role of Nadina Hale in Easter Parade (1948). Ann Miller replaced her. She also had to relinquish the lead femme role in An American in Paris (1951) due to pregnancy. Leslie Caron took over the part and became a star.
Unlike many top female dancers in the era of movie musicals, she was trained as a ballerina in the Russian tradition.
During a family vacation in Los Angeles when she was 12, her parents enrolled her in ballet classes at a school in Hollywood. One of her teachers was Nico Charisse.
Said her husband could tell who she had been dancing with that day on an MGM set. If she came home covered with bruises on her, it was the very physically demanding Gene Kelly, if not it was the smooth and agile Fred Astaire.
Fred Astaire, in his 1959 memoir “Steps in Time”, referred to Cyd as “beautiful dynamite”.
Got her start in Hollywood when Ballet Russe star David Lichine was hired by Columbia for a ballet sequence in the musical film Something to Shout About (1943). Cyd, who was then billed as Lily Norwood, appeared in the scene and attracted attention. Movie offers, including a dancing role opposite Astaire in Ziegfeld Follies (1945), led to a seven-year contract offer by MGM.
She was inducted into the Texas Film Hall of Fame in March 2002 in Austin, Texas.
One of the few actresses to have danced with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in the movies, other actresses that have also done this includes Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth, Vera-Ellen, Debbie Reynolds and Leslie Caron.
One of the few, if not only, world-renowned prima ballerinas to be featured in a popular hip-hop music video. She had a cameo in “Alright” (1990) by Janet Jackson.
She was an honorary member of the National Federation of Republican Women along with Laraine Day, Rhonda Fleming and Coleen Gray.
Although she is interred in a niche at Hillside Memorial Park, a well-known Jewish cemetery in Los Angeles, Charrise was in fact a practicing Methodist. Her funeral was even presided by Dr. Gary Allen Dicky, pastor of the United Methodist Church of Westlake Village.
With sweethearts in mind, Woodforest is planning Cupid’s Corner 10 am-8 pm Feb. 7 at the Woodforest Homefinder Lodge, 101 Elk Trace Parkway. Vendors will have an array of gifts — jewelry, wine, truffles, children’s clothing and home décor items. Enjoy Valentine’s Day treats and wine while browsing and kids can enjoy crafts while parents shop. Staff will put finishing touches to gifts at the wrapping station. Visitors also can buy Papa John’s pizza 4-8 pm at special Valentine’s Day prices.
Price: Free!!!
Dark Light: The Micaeous Ceramics of Christine Nofchissey McHorse
The opening will also feature Spectra: Work by Adrian Esparza in the Front Gallery. Open studios by current resident artists to follow talks. In “Dark Light: The Micaceous Ceramics of Christine Nofchissey McHorse,” Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (HCCC) presents works by one of the most innovative contemporary forces in Native American pottery. Working from traditional materials and techniques, Christine Nofchissey McHorse’s vessel-based art blends the boundaries of pottery and sculpture, erasing the line between function and form.
As the Navajo artist’s first traveling exhibition, the show exhibits the unadorned sophistication of the sultry curves, black satiny surfaces, and modern forms of her Dark Light series, created from 1997 to present. An amalgam of Puebloan, Navajo, and contemporary influences, each sculpture possesses a cultural splendor that is as fertile as the Northern New Mexico riverbeds where McHorse harvests her clay. Through the unadulterated beauty of micaceous clay and with Puebloan construction techniques learned from her Taos mother-in-law, McHorse transforms her sketches into voluminous shapes that swell upwards like a natural spring. Dismissing the rudimentary forms that define Native American ethnic identity in craft, she returns to primordial shapes, akin to the modern aesthetic of Henri Moore. Experimenting with shape, mass, volume, and line, she creates organic vessels in the vein of her ancestors, who recognized the spiritual power of water, air, and earth.
Price: Free!!!
The Peking Acrobats
February 7, 2014 at 7:30pm
Jones Hall
This troupe of China’s most gifted performers, complemented by live musicians playing traditional Chinese instruments, returns to Houston for one night only! The Peking Acrobats have redefined audience perceptions of Chinese acrobatics. For more than 50 years they have held audiences of all ages spellbound with vibrant presentations of their ancient folk art. They perform daring maneuvers atop a precarious pagoda of chairs; they are experts at trick-cycling, precision tumbling, somersaulting and gymnastics. They defy gravity with amazing displays of contortion, flexibility and control. They push the envelope of human possibility with astonishing juggling dexterity and incredible balancing feats, showcasing tremendous skill and ability.
Price: $8-$10
Homestead Heritage Day
February 8, 2014 at 10 am – 4 pm
Jesse H. Jones Park, Humble, TX 77338
Bring the family for a “living history” look at 19th century Texas settler life. Enjoy the sights and sounds of folk music, blacksmithing, black powder weaponry, open fire cooking, and more as the skills of times past are demonstrated by scores of authentically outfitted reenactors.
Fun for the whole family!
Price: Free!!!
Made for Magazines: Iconic 20th-Century Photographs
Feb 9, 2014 – May 4, 2014
Drawn entirely from the MFAH collection, Made for Magazines: Iconic 20th-Century Photographs surveys this richly historic era through some 80 images published by magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar, Life, Texas Monthly, and Vogue. Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs, first published in newspapers and later in magazines, are also included. Among the artists represented are Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, Gordon Parks, Irving Penn, Edward Steichen, and William Wegman.
Price: $14
ReelAbilities: Houston Disabilities Film Festival
February 9, 2014 – February 13, 2014 (Recurring daily)
The ReelAbilities Houston Film Festival is a festival aimed at promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories and artistic expressions of people with different disabilities. The festival presents award winning films by and about people with disabilities in multiple locations. Post-screening discussions and other engaging programs bring together the community to explore, discuss, embrace, and celebrate the diversity of our shared human experience. Click on the link for this year’s schedule. http://houston.reelabilities.org/films
Price: Free!!!
Russian Spring Bazaar
February 3, 2014 – May 30, 2014 (Recurring every week day)
Discover unique ethnic souvenirs and gifts that are hard to find anywhere else. – Wooden figures of Father Frost; – Beautiful icons; – Lovely lacquer jewelry boxes; – Famous blue-and –white china – Gzhel; – Golden wooden tableware “Khokhloma”; – Famous Russian Matreshkas or nesting dolls.
Once a song and dance man, always a song and dance man. Those few words tell as much about me professionally as there is to tell.
James Francis Cagney, Jr. (July 17, 1899 – March 30, 1986) was an American actor and dancer, both on stage and in film, though it is film where he has had his greatest impact. Known for his consistently energetic performances, distinctive vocal stylings and deadpan comic timing he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances. He is best remembered for playing multi-faceted tough guys in movies like The Public Enemy and Angels With Dirty Faces and was even typecast or limited by this view earlier in his career. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth among its 50 Greatest American Screen Legends. No less a student of drama than Orson Welles said of Cagney that he was “maybe the greatest actor to ever appear in front of a camera.”
Cagney was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. His biographers disagree as to the actual location: either on the corner of Avenue D and 8th Street or in a top floor apartment at 391 East Eighth. His father, James Francis Cagney, Sr., was of Irish descent. By the time of his son’s birth, he was a bartender and amateur boxer, though on Cagney’s birth certificate, he is listed as a telegraphist. His mother was Carolyn (née Nelson); her father was a Norwegian ship captain while her mother was Irish. Cagney was the second of seven children, two of whom died within months of birth; he himself was very sick as a young child, so much so that his mother feared he would die before he could be baptized. He later attributed his sickness to the poverty in which they grew up. The family moved twice while he was still young, first to East 79th Street, and then to East 96th Street.
The red-haired, blue-eyed Cagney graduated from Stuyvesant High School in New York City in 1918, and attended Columbia College of Columbia University where he intended to major in art. He also took German and joined the Student Army Training Corps, but dropped out after one semester, returning home upon the death of his father during the 1918 flu pandemic.
He held a variety of jobs early in his life, giving all his earnings to his family: junior architect, copy boy for the New York Sun, book custodian at the New York Public Library, bellhop, draughtsman, and night doorman. It was while Cagney was working for the New York Public Library that he met Florence James, who would help him on his way to an acting career.[18] Cagney believed in hard work, later stating, “It was good for me. I feel sorry for the kid who has too cushy a time of it. Suddenly he has to come face-to-face with the realities of life without any mama or papa to do his thinking for him.”
He started tap dancing as a boy (a skill that would eventually contribute to his Academy Award) and was nicknamed “Cellar-Door Cagney” after his habit of dancing on slanted cellar doors.
He was a good street fighter, defending his older brother Harry, a medical student, against all comers when necessary.[10][19] He engaged in amateur boxing, and was a runner-up for the New York State lightweight title. His coaches encouraged him to turn professional, but his mother would not allow it. He also played semi-professional baseball for a local team,[17] and entertained dreams of playing in the Major Leagues.
His introduction to films was unusual; when visiting an aunt in Brooklyn who lived opposite Vitagraph Studios, Cagney would climb over the fence to watch the filming of John Bunny movies. He became involved in amateur dramatics, starting as a scenery boy for a Chinese pantomime at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House, one of the first settlement houses in the nation, where his brother Harry performed and his soon-to-be friend, Florence James, directed. He was initially content working behind the scenes and had no interest in performing. One night, however, Harry became ill, and although Cagney was not an understudy, his photographic memory of rehearsals enabled him to stand in for his brother without making a single mistake. Therefore, Florence James has the unique distinction of being the first director to put him on a stage. Afterward, he joined a number of companies as a performer in a variety of roles.
In his first professional acting performance, Cagney danced costumed as a woman in the chorus line of the 1919 revue Every Sailor. He spent several years in vaudeville as a hoofer and comedian, until he got his first major acting part in 1925. He secured several other roles, receiving good notices, before landing the lead in the 1929 play Penny Arcade. After rave reviews, Warner Bros. signed him for an initial $500-a-week, three-week contract to reprise his role; this was quickly extended to a seven-year contract.
Cagney’s seventh film, The Public Enemy, became one of the most influential gangster movies of the period. Notable for a famous scene that makes dramatic use of a grapefruit, the film thrust Cagney into the spotlight, making him one of Hollywood’s biggest stars as well as one of Warner Brothers’ biggest contracts. In 1938, he received his first Academy Award for Best Actor nomination, for Angels with Dirty Faces for his subtle portrayal of the tough guy/man-child Rocky Sullivan. In 1942 Cagney was awarded the Oscar for his energetic portrayal of George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy. He was nominated a third time in 1955 for Love Me or Leave Me. Cagney retired from acting and dancing in 1961, deciding to spend time on his farm with his family. He exited retirement, twenty years later, for a part in the 1981 movie Ragtime, mainly to aid his recovery from a stroke.
Cagney walked out on Warners several times over the course of his career, each time returning upon much improved personal and artistic terms. In 1935, he sued Warners for breach of contract and won; this marked one of the first times an actor had beaten a studio over a contract issue. He worked for an independent film company for a year while the suit was being settled, and also established his own production company, Cagney Productions, in 1942, before returning to Warners again four years later. Jack Warner called him “The Professional Againster”, in reference to Cagney’s refusal to be pushed around. Cagney also made numerous morale-boosting troop tours before and during World War II, and was president of the Screen Actors Guild for two years.
James Cagney shows us how to dance down stairs
Great Dance Routine: James Cagney and Bob Hope
Yankee Doodle Dandy
Fun Facts about Mr. Jimmy Cagney:
Famous for his gangster roles he played in the 1930s and 1940s (which made his only Oscar win as the musical composer/dancer/actor George M.Cohan most ironic).
Cagney’s first job as an entertainer was as a female dancer in a chorus line.
(1942-1944) President of Screen Actors Guild (SAG)
Pictured on a 33¢ USA commemorative postage stamp in the Legends of Hollywood series, issued 22 July 1999.
Was best friends with actors Pat O’Brien and Frank McHugh.
Earned a Black Belt in Judo.
He was voted the 14th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
Extraordinarily (for Hollywood), he never cheated on his wife Frances, resulting in a marriage that lasted 64 years (ending with his death). The closest he came was nearly giving into a seduction attempt by Merle Oberon while the two stars were on tour to entertain WWII GIs.
His electric acting style was a huge influence on future generations of actors. Actors as diverse as Clint Eastwood and Malcolm McDowell point to him as their number one influence to become actors.
Lived in a Gramercy Park building in New York City that was also occupied by Margaret Hamilton and now boasts Jimmy Fallon as one of its tenants.
Though most Cagney imitators use the line “You dirty rat!”, Cagney never actually said it in any of his films.
His performance as George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) is ranked #6 on Premiere Magazine’s 100 Greatest Performances of All Time (2006).
His performance as Tom Powers in The Public Enemy (1931) is ranked #57 on Premiere Magazine’s 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) is ranked #88 on the American Film Institute’s 100 Most Inspiring Movies of All Time.
Turned down Stanley Holloway’s role as Eliza’s father in My Fair Lady (1964).
Turned down the lead role in The Jolson Story (1946), which went to Larry Parks.
Broke a rib while filming the dance scene in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) but continued dancing until it was completed.
Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan at a ceremony at the White House on 26 March 1984.
Wrote that of the sixty-two films he made, he rated Love Me or Leave Me (1955) costarring Doris Day among his top five.
A studio changed his birth date from 1899 to 1904 to capitalize on his youthful appearance.
He refused payment for his cameo in The Seven Little Foys (1955) even though he spent ten days learning his complicated tap routine for the film.
The River Oaks School of Dancing. The name alone is intimidating. River Oaks. Anyone living in the Houston area understands the prestige behind the name. Older men and women dressed in Ralph Lauren and Ann Taylor practically floating around a ballroom was the image that burned in my brain. But I was so excited about writing an article on their dance studio. I always wanted to learn how to waltz! Then it hit me. I was going to learn ballroom dancing…in a room full of people…who have been taking lessons for a while….watching me mess up. Oh dear. What did I just do? I don’t have a dancing background! Sure I took ballet when I was five and swing dancing in high school, which I couldn’t remember, but those don’t count! I became so nervous that I couldn’t even figure out what to wear to the lessons. I thought I needed a specific outfit or special shoes, like the dancers in their pictures. All of a sudden I didn’t feel that excited anymore.
I realized there was no turning back and when the day came I drove to the dance studio. I secretly thought that since I’m just a writer I wouldn’t have to dance that much, I could simply hide somewhere and observe. But when I got there, I realized it wasn’t a group class, it was actually a private session. Great! Now all I needed to worry about was the large probability of stepping on my instructor’s feet.
My instructor wasn’t even what I had imagined. I expected someone closer to my grandfather’s age or a strict Russian woman telling me I had the rhythm of a goose walking on a tightrope. I know it’s a stereotype but I couldn’t help it! However, none of the instructors were like that. They were all in their twenties and thirties and some of the nicest and funniest people I ever met. Their kindness and constant encouragements gave me confidence even when I messed up; which happened more than once.
Before we even started, my instructor John first asked me what dances I knew. I told him my all about my dancing “experiences” and he decided to start off with something I had previously learned (forgotten) instead of immediately throwing me head-first into the deep end. It actually boosted my confidence and made me feel more comfortable about the actual dancing part of the job. After the review, we slowly worked on new material. The Foxtrot was at least similar to the swing dances, but The Cha-Cha…uh well…wasn’t.
At least with some of the dances a person can almost fake the moves. Even Mel, one of the instructors, said if you aren’t that great at swing dancing just look like you’re having a good time and people will think you know what you’re doing. Love it! But when dancing The Cha-Cha, yeah I wasn’t very good at even faking that one. The nice thing was that after nearly colliding with John a couple of times, I finally got it. Yay! So, I ended up learning four dances in a 50 minute class!
Now before anyone gets too excited or too scared about taking one of their classes, let me explain. Since I was invited to write an article on their dance studio and get first-hand experience, I was given the opportunity to learn a lot more in a short amount of time. Otherwise the private classes are tailored to your own skill level, needs and goals. Since you work one-on-one with your instructor, you can learn at your own pace, ask as many questions as you’d like, and learn the dances that interest you.
I was actually disappointed the session was over so soon. I had more than fun than I had ever imagined. I was even trying to stop myself from dancing in the car on the way home. I also found myself practicing the dances around my house. That’s how much fun I had! The best part was being invited back for their Friday group class and their dance party along with one more dance lesson. That night was more fun than the previous one.
This time my instructor taught me the Waltz and the Rumba. I think I did better with the Rumba than the Waltz mainly because John gave me a little tip. When learning the Rumba, never pick up the balls of the feet when sliding from side-to-side. The best way to remember this is to imagine a mint conditioned vintage baseball card under each foot. The objective is to try to keep the cards in perfect condition under the feet and away from exposure. The other part of the dance focuses on the toes. He told me to pretend I was in a vineyard squishing grapes. Squish-Squish-Slide-Squish-Squish-Slide. Then I got it! Brilliant! Ok to me it was brilliant. I honestly had no idea how to Rumba, but when John gave me the visuals then it became easy.
The Waltzing part was fun; aside from stepping on John’s feet twice. He did make me feel a little better when he told me I would be surprised how many times it actually happens to him. I felt as if I had been initiated into some sort of club. But it really was great! I kept picturing Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers gliding across a ballroom floor. It truly is the most elegant dance on the planet-in my opinion anyway. All in all it was a great lesson.
The fun wasn’t over yet! The group session was next. Every Friday their group classes practice the spotlighted dance from 8:00-9:00 pm. Each month the River Oaks School of Dancing focuses on a specific dance in their group classes. This month they spotlighted the Waltz and in February they will be teaching the East Coast Swing! It was very convenient to have my dance lesson be the same dance that was being spotlighted in the group classes. I felt a lot more comfortable about performing with others by that point. I thought I was going to have to perform in the middle of the room and have everyone watch me. Not even close. John and Pari basically break the steps down piece-by-piece and everyone copies the moves. The group classes aren’t intimidating at all and that part was what I was dreading the most.
But then the real fun began after the group session. Party Time!!! This is where the magic happens. The instructors and students show off their skills in a fun, social environment for an hour. To be honest, just watching everyone was just as much fun as the actual dancing. They played a variety of music and a “serve yourself” bar is provided. No, I did not try the bar because I was my own date who was driving herself home that night. The party is a great opportunity to mix and mingle with the wonderful students who are also interested in learning to dance!
If a song came on and I didn’t know the dance, an instructor would come up to me and ask me if I wanted to learn it. Pari was really sweet in teaching me how to tango. Thank you Pari! Yuri and Angele were my waltzing partners at one point too. It was so much fun! Every fear I had just melted away. I never felt out-of-place or intimidated. I loved every moment of it and was a little sad that it was over so soon.
I want to thank the wonderful staff at the River Oaks School of Dancing, Ina Darley and Miss Kim for their help and for inviting me to the dance studio. I also want to thank all of the amazing instructors for their patience, humor and kindness. Pari, Yuri, Angele, Mel and John thank you all so much!
So what is the takeaway for all of you readers?
Ladies, don’t be intimidated to give dancing a try
Gentlemen, real men ballroom dance
Interested in signing up? You can schedule an online appointment at http://www.riveroaksdancing.com or call 713-529-0959 and start your complementary lesson now!
Emily Pau graduated from Texas A&M University with a degree in English and a minor in Communication. She is a native Houstonian and first-generation Cuban-American. She is fluent in American and French Sign Language and when she is not working as a lion tamer, she enjoys drag racing her red Volkswagen Beetle named “Harvey” on the weekends.
Emily Pau, Social Media and Blog Manager for Frame Dance Productions, can be contacted at emily.pau@framedance.org.
In a really well-written musical, you talk until you just can’t talk anymore, you’re going to have to sing. And when you’re just so full you can’t sing anymore, then you have to dance. It’s a natural progression.
Beatrice “Bebe” Neuwirth was born in Princeton, New Jersey, the daughter of Sydney Anne, a painter, and Lee Paul Neuwirth, a mathematician. She has an older brother Peter, an actuary. Neuwirth is Jewish, and attended Chapin School in New Jersey as well as Princeton Day School (New Jersey) of Princeton, but graduated from Princeton High School (a public school) in 1976. She began to study ballet at the age of five, and chose it as her field of concentration when she attended Juilliard in New York City in 1976 and 1977, during which time she performed with the Princeton Ballet Company in Peter and the Wolf, The Nutcracker, and Coppélia, also appearing in community theater musicals. Neuwirth always dreamed of becoming a ballet dancer; the only other career she reportedly seriously contemplated was being a veterinarian.
Neuwirth made her Broadway debut in the role of Sheila in A Chorus Line in 1980. She later appeared in revivals of Little Me (1982) Sweet Charity (1986), for which she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and Damn Yankees (1994). 1996 saw her play Velma Kelly in the Broadway revival of Chicago. That role brought her her greatest stage recognition to date, and several awards including the Tony Award, Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. Neuwirth would later return to the still-running revival of Chicago in 2006, this time as Roxie Hart.
She appeared in a musical revue Here Lies Jenny, that featured songs by Kurt Weill, sung and danced by Neuwirth and a four-person supporting cast, as part of an unspoken ambiguous story in an anonymous seedy bar possibly in Berlin in the 1930s. The show ran from May 7 through October 3, 2004, in the Zipper Theater in New York City. Here Lies Jenny was also presented by Neuwirth in San Francisco in 2005. In 2009, Neuwirth toured a one-woman cabaret show with pianist Scott Cady. The cabaret included music by Kurt Weill, Stephen Sondheim, Tom Waits, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, John Kander and Fred Ebb amongst others. In 2010, she returned to Broadway to create the role of Morticia Addams in the original production of The Addams Family opposite Nathan Lane.
Her screen credits include Green Card, Bugsy, Say Anything…, Jumanji, All Dogs Go to Heaven 2, Extreme Goofy Movie, Liberty Heights, Tadpole (for which the Seattle Film Critics named her Best Supporting Actress), How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, La Divorce, Malice, The Big Bounce, The Faculty, Fame and Woody Allen’s Celebrity.
On television, from 1986 to 1993 Neuwirth played Dr. Lilith Sternin, who married Dr. Frasier Crane in the hit comedy series Cheers. From the fourth to the seventh season, Neuwirth portrayed Lilith in a regular recurring role, and she appeared on the show as a main star from season eight to the final season, season eleven. Like Kelsey Grammer when he started on the show as Frasier Crane, she was not immediately given star billing in the opening credits, but at the end for seasons eight and nine; she appeared in the opening credits with her own portrait in seasons ten and eleven. She auditioned for this role with her arm in a sling, following a fall a week earlier. She won two Emmy Awards for the role, in 1990 and 1991. The character also made an appearance in the series Wings and in 12 episodes of the Cheers spin-off Frasier, which earned her a 1995 Emmy Award nomination as Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.
Other small-screen credits include a guest appearance in the first season of NewsRadio, a small role on The Adventures of Pete and Pete (episode: “The Call”), Deadline (2000), Hack (2003), Law & Order: Trial by Jury (2005), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999 as a modeling agent/suspect; 2005 as A.D.A Tracey Kibre), and the miniseries Wild Palms and the fourth season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, First Contact, as Lanel. She appeared as herself in episodes of Will and Grace, Strangers with Candy and Celebrity Jeopardy!. In 2009, she co-starred as Ms. Kraft in the remake of Fame. She recently had a recurring role as Caroline, the literary editor of Jonathan Ames, on the HBO series Bored to Death. She’s also appeared in shows like Blue Bloods, The Good Wife, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch as well as provided voice overs for various cartoons.
All That Jazz and Hot Honey Rag
I’m A Brass Band
Nowadays
Fun Facts about Miss Bebe Neuwirth
As of mid-January 2014, Bebe Neuwirth will have played all three of the principle female roles in the long-running Broadway Revival of Chicago. She was in the revival’s original cast as Velma Kelly, and won the 1997 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. In 2007, Neuwirth did a stint as Roxie Hart, and in 2014, she returned to the show again, this time playing Warden “Mama” Morton.
Her husband, Chris Calkins is is the founder of Destino vineyards in Napa Valley.
After Cheers (1982) went off the air, she got a lot of offers from TV and film essentially asking her to pretty much play the same character. She was offered a regular role as Lilith on the Cheers (1982) spin-off, Frasier (1993) but she turned it down so she could go back to Broadway. She did guests spots on the show instead.
She raises money to help stray cats and dogs.
She had hip replacement surgery in 2006.
She has played the same character (Dr. Lilith Sternin) in three different series: Cheers(1982), Wings (1990) and Frasier (1993).
Has won two Tony Awards: in 1986 as Best Actress (Featured Role – Musical) for playing Nicki in a revival of “Sweet Charity;” and in 1997 as Best Actress (Musical) for playing Velma Kelly in a revival of “Chicago.”
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