Previous posts for August 12th are here: Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (2019) and Joseph Barnby (2020)
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Michael Kidd (12 August 1915 – 23 December 2007) was an American film and stage choreographer, dancer, and actor.
Step Right This Way
He initially turned down the assignment, recalling in 1997: "Here are these slobs living off in the woods. They have no schooling, they are uncouth, there's manure on the floor, the cows come in and out—and they're gonna get up and dance?" -- Wikipedia
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is particularly known for Kidd's unusual
choreography, which makes dance numbers out of such mundane frontier
pursuits as chopping wood and raising a barn. -- adapted from
Wikipedia, s.v. "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers"
If Michael Kidd had had his druthers
Those seven brides and seven brothers
Wouldn't have been asked to dance,
Because, he said, no frontier dude
Would strike a graceful attitude
In some balletic stance.
But watch the film and you will find
He had a total change of mind -
(You’ll see it at a glance).
The dances he at last devised
Were Western actions stylized,
Balletic movement in disguise
As settlers become dancing guys,
As if it were by chance.
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