A stripper or exotic dancer is a person whose occupation involves performing striptease in a public adult entertainment venue such as a strip club. At times, a stripper may be hired to perform at private events.
The Nutcracker, Op. 71, is an 1892 two-act classical ballet by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, set on Christmas Eve at the foot of a Christmas tree in a child's imagination featuring a Nutcracker doll. The plot is an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' 1844 short story The Nutcracker, itself a retelling of E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1816 short story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. The ballet's first choreographer was Marius Petipa, with whom Tchaikovsky had worked three years earlier on The Sleeping Beauty, assisted by Lev Ivanov. Although the complete and staged The Nutcracker ballet was not initially as successful as the 20-minute Nutcracker Suite that Tchaikovsky had premiered nine months earlier, it became popular in later years.
Butoh is a form of Japanese dance theatre that encompasses a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement. Following World War II, butoh arose in 1959 through collaborations between its two key founders, Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. The art form is known to "resist fixity" and is difficult to define; notably, founder Hijikata Tatsumi viewed the formalisation of butoh with "distress". Common features of the art form include playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, and extreme or absurd environments. It is traditionally performed in white body makeup with slow hyper-controlled motion. However, with time butoh groups are increasingly being formed around the world, with their various aesthetic ideals and intentions.
Charles Weidman was a renowned choreographer, modern dancer and teacher. He is well known as one of the pioneers of modern dance in America. He wanted to break free from the traditional movements of dance forms popular at the time to create a uniquely American style of movement. Born in 1901, he choreographed from the 1920s until his death in 1975. While he is most famous for his work with Doris Humphrey, Weidman did much work on his own. He created a bridge to a new range of movement that he only began to explore. His work inspired many and helped to create a whole genre of dance that is still evolving today.
Robert Rossen was an American screenwriter, film director, and producer whose film career spanned almost three decades.
Robert Wilson is an American experimental theater stage director and playwright who has been described by The New York Times as "[America]'s – or even the world's – foremost vanguard 'theater artist.'" He has also worked as a choreographer, performer, painter, sculptor, video artist, and sound and lighting designer.
Black Orpheus is a 1959 romantic tragedy film directed by French filmmaker Marcel Camus and starring Marpessa Dawn and Breno Mello. It is based on the play Orfeu da Conceição by Vinicius de Moraes, which set the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice in a contemporary favela in Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval. The film was an international co-production among companies in Brazil, France and Italy.
Hip hop dance is a range of street dance styles primarily performed to hip hop music or that have evolved as part of hip hop culture. It is influenced by a wide range of styles that were created in the 1970s and made popular by dance crews in the United States. The television show Soul Train and the 1980s films Breakin', Beat Street, and Wild Style showcased these crews and dance styles in their early stages; therefore, giving hip-hop dance mainstream exposure.
Yvonne Rainer is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is regarded as challenging and experimental. Her work is sometimes classified as minimalist art. Rainer currently lives and works in New York.
Ohad Naharin is an Israeli choreographer, contemporary dancer, and creator and teacher of a unique system/language/pedagogy of dance called Gaga. He served as artistic director of Batsheva Dance Company from 1990; he stepped down in 2018.
Jerome Albert Evans Jr., known as Silkski, was an American rapper, songwriter, and music producer who is known from his affiliation with Ol' Dirty Bastard (ODB) and the Wu-Tang Clan, whose affiliates are known as the Wu-Tang Killa Beez. Silkski is a PYN, Wu-Tang Management, Da Gutta Ent., Bungalo, Street Scholar, Universal Music Group artist and was a member of Brooklyn Zu. Silkski died October 28, 2016. He is survived by his wife Linnette Evans (Diamond), and four kids: Octavia Evans, Gauvauen Evans, Heidie Workneh, and Shadé Evans.
Breakdancing or breaking, also called b-boying or b-girling (women), is a style of street dance originated by African Americans and Nuyoricans in the Bronx.
Alive from Off Center, renamed Alive TV in 1992, was an American arts anthology television series aired by PBS between 1985 and 1996.
Richard Dyer is an English academic who held a professorship in the Department of Film Studies at King's College London. Specialising in cinema, queer theory, and the relationship between entertainment and representations of race, sexuality, and gender, he was previously a faculty member of the Film Studies Department at the University of Warwick for many years and has held a number of visiting professorships in the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany.
Lucinda Childs is an American postmodern dancer and choreographer. Her compositions are known for their minimalistic movements yet complex transitions. Childs is most famous for being able to turn the slightest movements into intricate choreography. Through her use of patterns, repetition, dialect, and technology, she has created a unique style of choreography that embraces experimentation and transdisciplinarity.
Goodnight, Ladies and Gentlemen is a 1976 French-Italian satirical comedy anthology film. It comprises twelve episodes on themes of corruption in various Italian institutions, each by a different writer and director collectively credited as "Cooperativa 15 Maggio". The episodes are a satire of a typical programming day of an Italian public broadcaster, with a fictional TG3 journalist interviewing a number of the other characters. The film stars Vittorio Gassman, Ugo Tognazzi, Nino Manfredi, Paolo Villaggio, Marcello Mastroianni, Senta Berger, Adolfo Celi, and Felice Andreasi.
Black Swan is a 2010 American psychological horror film directed by Darren Aronofsky from a screenplay by Mark Heyman, John McLaughlin, and Andres Heinz, based on a story by Heinz. The film stars Natalie Portman in the lead role, with Vincent Cassel, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, and Winona Ryder in supporting roles. The plot revolves around a production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake by the company of New York City Ballet. The production requires a ballerina to play the innocent and fragile White Swan, for which the committed dancer Nina Sayers (Portman) is a perfect fit, as well as the dark and sensual Black Swan, which are qualities better embodied by the new rival Lily (Kunis). Nina is overwhelmed by a feeling of immense pressure when she finds herself competing for the role, causing her to lose her tenuous grip on reality and descend into madness.
Pina is a 2011 German 3D documentary film directed by Wim Wenders that is about German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch. On 30 June 2009, during the preparation for the film, Bausch died unexpectedly, so Wenders cancelled the project, but the dancers of Bausch's company, Tanztheater Wuppertal, convinced him to proceed as planned, as a way of memorializing Bausch and some of her choreography.
Time Piece is a 1965 American independent experimental short film directed, written, produced by and starring Jim Henson. The film depicts an ordinary man living in constant motion, in a desperate attempt to escape the passage of time. Time Piece is notable as one of the few live-action projects Jim Henson produced that did not involve any form of puppetry. The short film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 1966.
Dance of the Polar Bears is a 1990 Danish drama film directed by Birger Larsen. The film was selected as the Danish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 63rd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
