Pattie Obey is an American Jazz dance choreographer [1] and a Jazz dance master teacher. In 2000 she was awarded the Jazz Dance World Congress Award due to her significant contribution to the world of Jazz Dance. [2]
Obey is a native of Chicago. [2] She had early roots in performance: her father worked for the Chicago Lyric Opera and she had two aunts who were professional dancers. [3] She started dancing at age three, and began to perform professionally in the 1970s with Gus Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago. [3]
Obey was the first woman to teach at the Jazz Dance World Congress in 1992. [2]
Jennifer Lynn "J.Lo" Lopez is an American singer, actress, and dancer. In 1991, Lopez began appearing as a Fly Girl dancer on In Living Color, where she remained a regular until she decided to pursue an acting career in 1993. For her first leading role in the 1997 Selena biopic of the same name, Lopez became the first Latin actress to earn over US$1 million for a film. She went on to star in Anaconda (1997) and Out of Sight (1998), and established herself as the highest-paid Latin actress in Hollywood.
Ella Jane Fitzgerald was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, intonation, and a "horn-like" improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing.
Gwyneth Evelyn "Gwen" Verdon was an American actress and dancer. She won four Tony Awards for her musical comedy performances, and served as an uncredited choreographer's assistant and specialty dance coach for theater and film. Verdon was a critically acclaimed performer on Broadway in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, having originated many roles in musicals, including the title character in Sweet Charity and Roxie Hart in Chicago. She is also strongly identified with her second husband, director-choreographer Bob Fosse, remembered as the dancer-collaborator-muse for whom he choreographed much of his work and as the guardian of his legacy after his death.
Robert Louis Fosse was an American dancer, musical-theatre choreographer, actor, theatre director, and filmmaker. 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). His films include Sweet Charity (1969), Cabaret (1972), Lenny (1975), All That Jazz (1979), and Star 80 (1983).
Chicago is a 2002 American musical black comedy crime film based on the 1975 stage musical of the same name. It explores the themes of celebrity, scandal, and corruption in Chicago during the Jazz Age. The film stars Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Richard Gere. Chicago centers on Roxie Hart (Zellweger) and Velma Kelly (Zeta-Jones), two murderesses who find themselves in jail together awaiting trial in 1920s Chicago. Roxie, a housewife, and Velma, a vaudevillian, fight for the fame that will keep them from the gallows. The film marks the theatrical directorial debut of Rob Marshall, who also choreographed the film, and was adapted by screenwriter Bill Condon, with music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. Critically lauded, Chicago won six Academy Awards in 2003, including Best Picture, the first musical to win Best Picture since Oliver! in 1968.
Beatrice "Bebe" Neuwirth is an American actress, singer, and dancer. On television, she played Dr. Lilith Sternin, Frasier Crane's wife, on both the TV sitcom Cheers and its spin-off Frasier. The role won her two Emmy Awards. In 2005, Neuwirth was cast as Bureau Chief/ADA Tracey Kibre in the short-lived Law & Order courtroom drama series, Law & Order: Trial By Jury on NBC, which was canceled after just 12 episodes due to low ratings. On stage she played the Tony Award–winning roles of Nickie in the revival of Sweet Charity (1986) as well as Lola in the revival of Damn Yankees in 1994 and Velma Kelly in the revival of Chicago (1996). Other Broadway musical roles include Morticia Addams in The Addams Family (2010). From 2014 to 2017, she starred as Nadine Tolliver in the CBS political drama Madam Secretary. In film, she portrayed Nora Shepherd in the original Jumanji (1995) and Jumanji: The Next Level (2019).
Yvette Marie Stevens, better known by her stage name Chaka Khan, is an American singer, songwriter and musician. Her career has spanned more than five decades, beginning in the 1970s as the lead vocalist of the funk band Rufus. Known as the "Queen of Funk", Khan was the first R&B artist to have a crossover hit featuring a rapper, with "I Feel for You" in 1984. Khan has won ten Grammy Awards and has sold an estimated 70 million records worldwide.
Rickie Lee Jones is an American singer, musician, songwriter, artist, and author. Over the course of a career that spans five decades, Jones has recorded in various musical styles including rock, R&B, pop, soul, and jazz.
Katherine Mary Dunham was an American dancer, choreographer, creator of the Dunham Technique, author, educator, anthropologist, and social activist. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers in African-American and European theater of the 20th century, and directed her own dance company for many years. She has been called the "matriarch and queen mother of black dance."
Dianne Walker, also known as Lady Di, is an American tap dancer. Her thirty-year career spans Broadway, television, film, and international dance concerts. Walker is the Artistic Director of TapDancin, Inc. in Boston, Massachusetts.
Patricia "Little Pattie" Thelma Thompson OAM is an Australian singer who performed as a teenage singer in 1960s surf pop and then in adult contemporary music. Her debut single from November 1963, "He's My Blonde Headed, Stompie Wompie, Real Gone Surfer Boy", achieved No. 2 chart success in Sydney and peaked at No. 19 on the national Kent Music Report. She appeared regularly on television variety programs, including Bandstand, and toured supporting Col Joye and the Joy Boys. Little Pattie was entertaining troops during the Vietnam War in Nui Dat, Vietnam, as an Australia Forces Sweetheart, when the nearby Battle of Long Tan began on 18 August 1966. In 1994 she received the Vietnam Logistic and Support Medal "in recognition of her services in support of the Australian Armed Forces in operations in Vietnam."
Susan P. Stroman is an American theatre director, choreographer, film director and performer. Her notable theater productions include The Producers, Crazy for You, Contact, and The Scottsboro Boys. She is a five-time Tony Award winner, four for Best Choreography and one as Best Director of a Musical for The Producers. In addition, she is a recipient of two Laurence Olivier Awards, five Drama Desk Awards, eight Outer Critics Circle Awards, two Lucille Lortel Awards, and the George Abbott Award for Lifetime Achievement in the American Theater. She is a 2014 inductee in the American Theater Hall of Fame in New York City.
Anna Marie Wooldridge, known professionally as Abbey Lincoln, was an American jazz vocalist, songwriter, and actress. She was a civil rights activist beginning in the 1960s. Lincoln made a career not only out of delivering deeply felt presentations of standards but writing and singing her own material.
Rumer Glenn Willis is an American actress and singer. She is the eldest daughter of actress Demi Moore and actor Bruce Willis. She has appeared in films Hostage (2005), The House Bunny (2008), Sorority Row (2009) and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). She portrayed Gia Mannetti in CBS' teen drama series 90210 (2009–10) and Tory Ash in FOX's musical drama series Empire (2017–18). Willis won season 20 of ABC's dance competition television series Dancing with the Stars. She made her Broadway debut in Chicago as Roxie Hart on September 21, 2015.
Ann Reinking was an American dancer, actress, choreographer and singer. She worked extensively in musical theater, starring in Broadway productions such as Coco (1969), Over Here! (1974), Goodtime Charley (1975), Chicago (1977), Dancin' (1978), and Sweet Charity (1986).
Regina Annette Taylor is an American actress and playwright. She has won several awards throughout her career, including a Golden Globe Award and NAACP Image Award. In July 2017, Taylor was announced as the new Denzel Washington Endowed Chair in Theatre at Fordham University's theatre program.
Shubha Mudgal is an Indian singer of Hindustani classical music. Her repertoire includes the genres of khyal, thumri, dadra, and Indian pop. She has received the Padma Shri in 2000.
Gus Giordano, born August Thomas Giordano III, was an American jazz dancer, teacher and choreographer. He performed on Broadway and in theater and television. He taught jazz dance to thousands in North America, Europe, Asia and South America. He was the founder of Gus Giordano Dance School (1953), founder of Gus Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago (1963), creator of the First American Jazz Dance World Congress (1990) and the author of Anthology of American Jazz Dance (1975). He taught at institutions around the world including American Ballet Theatre, The American University of Paris, Duke University, Joffrey Ballet, New York University and hundreds more. He choreographed award-winning shows for television, film, stage, commercials and industrials. Giordano is one of the founders of theatrical or Broadway jazz dance styles, not to be confused with African American vernacular jazz styles that he drew upon.
Patti Rutland is an American choreographer and the artistic director of Patti Rutland Jazz, a contemporary jazz dance and hip hop dance company based in Dothan, AL.