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Onna White | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 24, 1922 Inverness, Nova Scotia, Canada |
| Died | April 8, 2005 (aged 83) |
| Occupation(s) | Choreographer and dancer |
| Spouse | Larry Douglas (1948–1959) |
| Children | Two |
Onna White (March 24, 1922 – April 8, 2005) was a Canadian choreographer and dancer, nominated for eight Tony Awards. [1]
Born in Inverness, Nova Scotia, White began taking dance lessons at the age of twelve, and eventually her studies took her to the San Francisco Ballet, where she danced in the first full-length U.S. production of The Nutcracker . [2] Her first Broadway performance was in Finian's Rainbow in 1947. Her next assignment was Guys and Dolls , in which she both performed and assisted the choreographer, Michael Kidd, beginning an association that lasted through various productions until, in 1956, she choreographed her first Broadway show, Carmen Jones .
She married actor Larry Douglas in 1948; they divorced in 1959. [3] They had two children: Jeanne and Stuart. She choreographed both the stage version and screen versions of The Music Man (1962), 1776 (1972) and Mame (1974). In 1964, Douglas married Susan Luckey, who played the role of Zaneeta in the film of The Music Man.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted White an Academy Honorary Award for Oliver! (1968), one of the rare occasions that the Academy recognized choreography in film. Other recipients include Gene Kelly for "career achievements", Jerome Robbins for "choreographic achievement on film", Michael Kidd (White's mentor) for "services to the art of dance in the art of the screen" and Stanley Donen for "body of work". Fred Astaire's was much earlier, and was for his body of work.
White's Oscar is the only one that states the name of a film, i.e. "To Onna White for her outstanding choreography achievement for Oliver! " [ citation needed ]
Robert Louis Fosse was an American actor, choreographer, dancer, and film and stage director. He directed and choreographed musical works on stage and screen, including the stage musicals The Pajama Game (1954), Damn Yankees (1955), How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1961), Sweet Charity (1966), Pippin (1972), and Chicago (1975). He directed the films Sweet Charity (1969), Cabaret (1972), Lenny (1975), All That Jazz (1979), and Star 80 (1983).
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Pearl Lang was an American dancer, choreographer and teacher renowned as an interpreter and propagator of the choreography style of Martha Graham, and also for her own longtime dance company, the Pearl Lang Dance Theater. She is known for Appalachian Spring (1944), American Masters (1985) and Driven (2001)
Donald McKayle was an American modern dancer, choreographer, teacher, director and writer best known for creating socially conscious concert works during the 1950s and '60s that focus on expressing the human condition and, more specifically, the black experience in America. He was "among the first black men to break the racial barrier by means of modern dance." His work for the concert stage, especially Games (1951) and Rainbow Round My Shoulder (1959), has been the recipient of widespread acclaim and critical attention. In addition, McKayle was the first black man to both direct and choreograph major Broadway musicals, including the Tony Award-winners Raisin (1973) and Sophisticated Ladies (1981), and he worked extensively in television and film. As a young man he appeared with some of the twentieth century's most important choreographers, including Martha Graham, Anna Sokolow, and Merce Cunningham, and in some of Broadway's landmark productions, including House of Flowers (1958) and West Side Story (1957), where he served for a time as the production's dance captain. A Tony Award and Emmy Award nominee, McKayle held an endowed chair for the last decades of his life in the Dance Department at UC Irvine, where he was the Claire Trevor Professor of Dance. He previously served on the faculties of Connecticut College, Sarah Lawrence College, and Bennington College.
Dame Gillian Barbara Lynne was an English ballerina, dancer, choreographer, actress, and theatre-television director, noted for her theatre choreography associated with two of the longest-running shows in Broadway history, Cats and The Phantom of the Opera. At age 87, she was made a DBE in the 2014 New Year Honours List.
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Lee (Becker) Theodore was a Broadway director/choreographer and performer. Born in the 1930s to Russian Jewish immigrants Zena and Genya Becker, and raised in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, she began dance lessons at the age of 4. As a child, she often performing at her parents' "Veyetcherinkas"—Russian cultural arts nights in their home with her brother Eugene Becker and her sister, Rita. As she developed as a young dancer, she became recognized for her extraordinary talent and ability. She got her first professional job as a dancer in a ballet company when she still a teenager. As her dance career developed, she moved on from Classical ballet to the wildly creative work then being done in modern dance, Broadway, and what later became known as jazz dance. She was richly recognized in the field, working with all the top artists.
Margo Sappington is an American choreographer and dancer. She was nominated in 1975 for both a Tony Award as Best Choreographer and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Choreography for her work on the play Where's Charley?. In 1988, her ballet Virgin Forest was the subject of an award-winning documentary by PBS. In 2005 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award for choreography from the Joffrey Ballet.
Denise Faye Greenbaum is an American actress, dancer, choreographer, and director. She is the recipient of an American Choreography Award, as well as a Screen Actor's Guild Award for the 2002 film Chicago. Faye won the Dance Track Magazine Artist Award for best choreography in a feature film for her work in Burlesque. Additionally, she received nominations including the Fred and Adele Astaire Award and The World Dance Awards for her choreography in Burlesque.
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