Download or read book Rap a Tap Tap written by Leo Dillon and published by Scholastic Inc.. This book was released on 2002 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In illustrations and rhyme describes the dancing of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, one of the most famous tap dancers of all time. A brief Afterword outlines his career.

Download or read book Mr Bojangles written by James Haskins and published by . This book was released on 2013-12 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over sixty years after his death, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson is still the most famous tap dancer who ever lived. Robinson was the first black single dancer to star in white vaudeville circuits and he was a headliner for nearly thirty years. He got top billing at the Palace in New York, and he played command performances for kings and presidents. This first full-length biography reveals the charmer, gambler, brawler, athlete, and consummate entertainer behind the crusade for actors' rights, who pushed past the color barrier in the first half of the twentieth century. Haskins and Mitgang, with access to many of the people who knew Bojangles best, and to his scrapbooks and personal papers, have created a vivid portrait of the man behind the myth, from his birth in Richmond, Virginia, to his death and the star-studded funeral where he was eulogized by Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and Ed Sullivan. When people talk about famous American freedom fighters they talk about Rosa Parks, a brave woman who took a seat in the front of a bus and broke it down. They talk about Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They talk about Jackie Robinson. They talk about many others who sacrificed to achieve equality and justice. The person they don't talk about is the man who helped to break down vaudeville, Broadway, the recording industry, radio, television, and Hollywood. They don't talk about the man who broke down Miami and was responsible for its first integrated audience. They don't talk about the man who was responsible for the hiring of the first African-American on the Dallas police force. They don't talk about the man who went to F.D.R. during World War II for changes for African-American soldiers who were risking their lives for their country. They don't talk about the freedom fighter, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, who happened to be the world's greatest tap dancer of his day. Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., one of Harlem's greatest leaders and freedom fighters, and Pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, helped to answer that question when he eulogized "Bojangles" in 1949. Rev. Powell said: Born within the shadow of slavery and dying at the middle of the twentieth century, the most glorious century of mankind, Bill Robinson was a legend. He was a legend because he was ageless and raceless. Bill wasn't a credit to his race, meaning the Negro race. Bill was a credit to the human race. No Protestant ever appeared at more benefits for Catholics than Bill Robinson. No gentile ever appeared at more benefits for Jews than Bill Robinson. He was raceless. He was not a great Negro dancer. He was the world's greatest dancer. In some way the legend got around that Bill Robinson was an 'Uncle Tom.' Oh, no! You didn't know Bill if you heard of that story! So, let's ask the question again. Why don't people think of Bill Robinson as an American hero and front-line freedom fighter? They one word answer is simple - racism. Not the racism of white against black, but the racism of black against black. The people he fought for the most turned their backs on Bill Robinson and let the cancer of racism enter his legacy. "Bojangles " was the Mayor of Harlem and a founding member of the Rainbow Coalition long before the term was coined. Bill Robinson fought for respect with every weapon he had - his charming smile, his humor, his dancing feet, his fists, or his gold plated pearl handled gun given to him by the New York City Police Department. During a time when too few African-American voices shouted for justice, Bill Robinson's whispers were heard by presidents, governors, kings, queens, and countless others. Bill "Bojangles" Robinson was a man who fought dignity for himself, and others. Bill "Bojangles" Robinson stood up to fight for what was right from the onset of his sixty-year career. He demanded justice and equality as a performer, and as a man. He stood up then, and never sat down.

Download or read book Waiting for Bojangles written by Olivier Bourdeaut and published by Simon & Schuster. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An “oddball fairy tale” (The New York Times)—shortlisted for one of France’s highest literary prizes—a dark, funny, and wholly charming novel about a young boy and his eccentric family, who grapple with the realities of mental illness in unique and whimsical ways. A young boy lives with his madcap parents, Louise and George, and an exotic bird in a Parisian apartment, where the unopened mail rises in a tower by the door and his parents dance each night to Nina Simone’s mellifluous classic “Mister Bojangles.” As his mother, mesmerizing and unpredictable, descends deeper into her own mind, it is up to the boy and his father to keep her safe—and, when that fails, happy. Fleeing Paris for a country home in Spain, they come to understand that some of the most radiant people bear the heaviest burdens. Told from the perspective of a young boy who idolizes his parents—and from George’s journals, detailing his epic love story with his wife—Waiting for Bojangles is a “lighthearted and yet sorrowful tale” (San Francisco Chronicle) that will stay with you long after the final page.

Download or read book What the Eye Hears written by Brian Seibert and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-11-17 with total page 670 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Magisterial, revelatory, and-most suitably-entertaining, What the Eye Hears offers an authoritative account of the great American art of tap dancing. Brian Seibert, a dance critic for The New York Times, begins by exploring tap's origins as a hybrid of the jig and clog dancing from the British Isles and dances brought from Africa by slaves. He tracks tap's transfer to the stage through blackface minstrelsy and charts its growth as a cousin to jazz in the vaudeville circuits and nightclubs of the early twentieth century. Seibert chronicles tap's spread to ubiquity on Broadway and in Hollywood, analyzes its decline after World War II, and celebrates its rediscovery and reinvention by new generations of American and international performers. In the process, we discover how the history of tap dancing is central to any meaningful account of American popular culture. This is a story with a huge cast of characters, from Master Juba (it was probably a performance of his in a Five Points cellar that Charles Dickens described in American Notes for General Circulation) through Bill Robinson and Shirley Temple, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and Gene Kelly and Paul Draper to Gregory Hines and Savion Glover. Seibert traces the stylistic development of tap through individual practitioners, vividly depicting dancers both well remembered and now obscure. And he illuminates the cultural exchange between blacks and whites over centuries, the interplay of imitation and theft, as well as the moving story of African-Americans in show business, wielding enormous influence as they grapple with the pain and pride of a complicated legacy.What the Eye Hears teaches us to see and hear the entire history of tap in its every step.

Download or read book Broadway written by Laurence Maslon and published by Applause Theatre & Cinema. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Applause Books). A companion to the six-part PBS documentary series, Broadway: The American Musical is the first comprehensive history of the musical, from its roots at the turn of the 20th century through the smashing successes of the new millennium. The in-depth text is lavishly illustrated with a treasure trove of photographs, sheet-music covers, posters, scenic renderings, production stills, rehearsal shots and caricatures, many previously unpublished. Revised and updated, with a brand-new foreword by Julie Andrews and new material on all the Broadway musicals through the 2009-2010 season.

Download or read book Hermes Pan written by John Franceschina and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2012-06-12 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Armed with an eighth-grade education, an inexhaustible imagination, and an innate talent for dancing, Hermes Pan (1909-1990) was a boy from Tennessee who became the most prolific, popular, and memorable choreographer of the glory days of the Hollywood musical. While he may be most well-known for the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals which he choreographed at RKO film studios, he also created dances at Twentieth Century-Fox, M-G-M, Paramount, and later for television, winning both the Oscar and the Emmy for best choreography.In Hermes Pan: The Man Who Danced with Fred Astaire, Pan emerges as a man in full, an artist inseparable from his works. He was a choreographer deeply interested in his dancers' personalities, and his dances became his way of embracing and understanding the outside world. Though his time in a Trappist monastery proved to him that he was more suited to choreography than to life as a monk, Pan remained a deeply devout Roman Catholic throughout his creative life, a person firmly convinced of the powers of prayer. While he was rarely to be seen without several beautiful women at his side, it was no secret that Pan was homosexual and even had a life partner. As Pan worked at the nexus of the cinema industry's creative circles during the golden age of the film musical, this book traces not only Pan's personal life but also the history of the Hollywood musical itself. It is a study of Pan, who emerges here as a benevolent perfectionist, and equally of the stars, composers, and directors with whom he worked, from Astaire and Rogers to Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Elizabeth Taylor, Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Bob Fosse, George Gershwin, Samuel Goldwyn, and countless other luminaries of American popular entertainment.Author John Franceschina bases his telling of Pan's life on extensive first-hand research into Pan's unpublished correspondence and his own interviews. Pan enjoyed one of the most illustrious careers of any Hollywood dance director, and because his work also spanned across Broadway and television, this book will appeal to readers interested in musical theater history, dance history, and film.

Download or read book Tap Dancing America written by Constance Valis Hill and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-12 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is the vibrant, colorful, high-stepping story of tap -- the first comprehensive, fully documented history of a uniquely American art form. Writing with all the verve and grace of tap itself, Constance Valis Hill offers a sweeping narrative, filling a major gap in American dance history and placing tap firmly center stage.

Download or read book Deathryde written by Michael P. Naughton and published by Gilded Hearse Press . This book was released on 2014-07-25 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They say you can't cheat death... well, that doesn't stop these guys from trying... James DeRossa is a natural born rebel. Just released from Jackson County Jail, he turns his back on the family funeral business in Detroit and heads out to Tinseltown to set up a heist and settle an old score. Who better to hire than a group of unscrupulous undertakers. Only this time they aren t burying anyone, they're out to disinter $25 million in missing cash and ice. But Detective Hank Gladwin brought his shovel to the party and is onto DeRossa when his list of suspects starts pushing up more than daisies. These felons are all about to join a deadly procession and one hell of a ride. Deathryde: Rebel Without a Corpse is written in the hip, offbeat, satirical crime novel style of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen. Fans of Six Feet Under or Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One should also appreciate this oddly entertaining book.

Download or read book Clickety Clack written by Rob Spence and published by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2001-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A train gets noisier and more crowded as quacking ducks, dancing acrobats, talking yaks, and packs of elephants board.

Download or read book Ordinary People written by Diana Evans and published by . This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, and the Rathbones Folio Prize Winner of the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature A Washington Post "Lily Lit" Book Club Selection

Download or read book Groovy Songs of the 60s for Harp written by Sylvia Woods and published by Hal Leonard Publishing Corporation. This book was released on 2007-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Harp). Feelin' groovy? Sylvia Woods' spiffy collection of 40 songs from the 1960s will inspire you to put on your embroidered bell-bottoms and wear some flowers in your hair. Some of the pieces can be played by beginning harp players, but most are at advanced beginner to intermediate levels. Fingerings, lyrics and chord symbols are included. Pieces are in C or sharp keys, and can be played on either lever or pedal harp. About half of the songs do not have any lever changes within the pieces. 96 pages, spiral-bound. Includes TV and movie themes, and music by: Burt Bacharach and Hal David; Bob Dylan; Tony Hatch; Justin Hayward; Mick Jagger and Keith Richards; Gerard Marsden; John Phillips; Nino Rota; John Sebastian; Paul Simon; Jerry Jeff Walker; Brian Wilson; and more. Includes songs made popular by: The Animals; The Association; The Beach Boys; Jimmy Clanton; Petula Clark; Judy Collins; Donovan; Bob Dylan; The Fifth Dimension; Jerry and the Pacemakers; The Lovin' Spoonful; Joni Mitchell; The Moody Blues; The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band; Peter, Paul and Mary; Elvis Presley; The Rolling Stones; Simon and Garfunkel; The Turtles; Dionn Warwick; The Youngbloods; and others. Playable on lever harps and pedal harps.

Download or read book Brotherhood in Rhythm written by Constance Valis Hill and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2002 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tap dancing legends Fayard (b. 1914) and Harold (1918-2000) Nicholas amazed crowds with their performances in musicals and films from the 30s to the 80s. They performed with Gene Kelly in The Pirate, with Cab Calloway in Stormy Weather, with Dorothy Dandridge (Harold's wife) in Sun Valley Serenade, and with a number of other stars on the stage and on the screen. Author Hill not only guides readers through the brothers' showstopping successes and the repressive times in which their dancing won them universal acclaim, she also offers extensive insight into the history and choreography of tap dancing, bringing readers up to speed on the art form in which the Nicholas Brothers excelled.

Download or read book Big Deal written by Kevin Winkler and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-08 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bob Fosse (1927-1987) is recognized as one of the most significant figures in post-World War II American musical theater. With his first Broadway musical, The Pajama Game in 1954, the "Fosse style" was already fully developed, with its trademark hunched shoulders, turned-in stance, and stuttering, staccato jazz movements. Fosse moved decisively into the role of director with Redhead in 1959 and was a key figure in the rise of the director-choreographer in the Broadway musical. He also became the only star director of musicals of his era--a group that included Jerome Robbins, Gower Champion, Michael Kidd, and Harold Prince--to equal his Broadway success in films. Following his unprecedented triple crown of show business awards in 1973 (an Oscar for Cabaret, Emmy for Liza with a Z, and Tony for Pippin), Fosse assumed complete control of virtually every element of his projects. But when at last he had achieved complete autonomy, his final efforts, the film Star 80 and the musical Big Deal, written and directed by Fosse, were rejected by audiences and critics. A fascinating look at the evolution of Fosse as choreographer and director, Big Deal: Bob Fosse and Dance in the American Musical considers Fosse's career in the context of changes in the Broadway musical theater over four decades. It traces his early dance years and the importance of mentors George Abbott and Jerome Robbins on his work. It examines how each of the important women in his adult life--all dancers--impacted his career and influenced his dance aesthetic. Finally, the book investigates how his evolution as both artist and individual mirrored the social and political climate of his era and allowed him to comfortably ride a wave of cultural changes.

Download or read book Airman written by and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Jet written by and published by . This book was released on 1998-12-21 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The weekly source of African American political and entertainment news.

Download or read book Rhinoceros Tap written by Sandra Boynton and published by Workman Publishing Company. This book was released on 1996-01-10 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sing a song of Boynton! Before there was the Grammy-niminated Philadelphia Chickens, the #1 New York Times children’s bestseller, there was Rhinoceros Tap, the collection of seriously silly songs. This truly delightful set—a Recording Industry Association of America Gold album with 647,000 copies in print—combines a big illustrated songbook and CD so children and grown-ups alike can read along, sing along, dance along, cluck along, and oink along to the fifteen original songs. There's "O, Lonely Peas," to appeal to every finicky young eater. The five-year-old's lament, "Bad Babies." A mouse's impassioned ballad to his beloved, "I Love You More Than Cheese." Plus the lead number, "Rhinoceros Tap," the ever-popular “Barnyard Dance,” and more. With lyrics and pictures by Boynton and music written with and played by the one and only Michael Ford, these songs have the style, swing, charm, and pizzazz that little listeners deserve. Ready? All together now.

Download or read book Dance written by DK and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2012-08-20 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In styles as diverse as flamenco, czardas, and bangra, dance reflects cultural identity and inspires and energizes individuals and groups. Dance contains everything you need to know about world dance. With lively and colorful presentation, young people will discover the joy of movement from cultures all over the globe.