The Quotable Dancer

By Colin Jarman

Biographies & Memoirs

Entertainment & Style

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Language: English Not Rated (NR)

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The Quotable Dancer contains 1300 humorous dance quotes from stage & big screen, as well as an extensive A-Z of general dance topics and an all-embracing card of dance styles from Classical Ballet to Street Dance ...

"Mixing Ballet and Breakdance is like mixing apples and space-ships."

Touré
in USA Today (2001)

The book also contains the fun things said by and about famous dancers such as: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Busby Berkeley, Martha Graham, Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Bob Fosse, Nijinsky, John Travolta, Patrick Swayze, Michael Jackson, Michael Flatley, Savion Glover, even Mumbles the Penguin & Wall-E.

"Michael Jackson's dance moves were angular and twitchy, hinting at digital stops and starts rather than analog fluidity - except, of course, for his famous Moonwalk, the image of someone striding gracefully without ever leaving center stage."

Jon Pareles
in The New York Times (2009)

With dance being a global phenomenon, this book reflects the cosmopolitan appeal of the terpsichorean art. With entries from all over the world and from down the centuries, this book still retains a firm focus on and the idealogical identity of dance the world over.

"The Soft-Shoe Shuffle, the wistful Tom Sawyerish scuffing of the stage boards that says Americans experience an isolating loneliness as if by the provenance of birth."

T.E. Kalem
in Time magazine (1975)

An editor's choice selection of quotations
from The Quotable Dancer ...

DANCE in GENERAL

"Stifling an urge to dance is bad for your health - it rusts your spirit and your hips."

Adabella Radici

"Dancing is beautiful and sexy, unless it's at an open-bar wedding reception."

Ross Werland
in The Chicago Tribune (2009)

"Bad dancing is more fun to watch than bad singing is to listen to."

Dana Stevens
on Slate.com (2005)

"Choreography is like moisture in the mouth of an orator."

David Lichine

"A lot of people insisted on a wall between Modern Dance and Ballet. I'm beginning to think that walls are very unhealthy things."

Twyla Tharp

"My love of my life is dancing, things like Tap, Modern, Ballet and Jazz. Also I love singing, even though my voice sounds awful, and watching me dance is like watching an elephant, so no-one does!"

Princess Diana
Letter to her nanny Mary Clarke (1978)

"I'm not an egomaniac like a lot of people say. But I am the world's best dancer, that's for sure."

Michael Flatley

DANCERS

FRED ASTAIRE & RITA HAYWORTH
"Fred Astaire's two films with Rita Hayworth are more than enough to make you forget Ginger Roger's ... Hayworth packs a shimmy that would knock Ginger back to the flatlands."

Dave Kehr
in The Chicago Reader

JONATHAN BURROWS and MATTEO FARGION
Speaking Dance [2006] - "Burrows and Fargion belong simultaneously in Victorian music-hall and a cognitive research science lab."

Ismene Brown
in The Daily Telegraph (2006)

CYD CHARISSE
"Her persona was smoky, sinuous, and cool: a quintessential 50s mix of sex and poise. She was the choreographic equivalent of a classic Sinatra LP."

Ty Burr
in The Boston Globe (2008)

SAVION GLOVER
"When I go see him, if he knows 'Im there, he'll do some of my steps. The only thing is, he'll throw it in, but he'll throw it in at, like, Mach 2."

Gregory Hines

MICHAEL HUISMAN
Margot {2009} - "Nureyev (Huisman) handsome as a Beatle, taut-haunched as a stag, and sailing across the stage like the first arrow in a castle siege."

Caitlin Moran
in The Times (2009)

MICHAEL JACKSON
"At some point in the early 1980s, Michael Jackson realized he could Moonwalk I'ts a great stunt. Jackson liked it so much, he turned it into a lifestyle."

Giles Smith
in The Independent (1992)

GENE KELLY
An American In Paris (1951) - "Astounding footwork and choreography from Gene Kelly, who makes Justin Timberlake look positively arthritic by comparison."

Empire magazine (2003)

MADONNA
Vogue <1990> - "A dance-floor training manual on looking good."

Stephen Holden
in The New York Times (1990)

MARIINSKY BALLET
"The Mariinsky is not just a company. It's a saga about a dynasty whose bloodline is that of Ballet itself. Think of it as a sweeping Russian epic following the fortunes of an artistic, aristocratic family that is always, always aware of its breeding."

Sanjoy Roy
in The Guardian (2008)

NEW YORK CITY BALLET
"Always succinct in his suggestions, Balanchine once told a dancer, 'Reach for it like you're reaching for a Cadillac.' They just don't reach for those Cadillacs at N.Y.C.B. anymore. It's SUV City Ballet now."

Toni Bentley
in The New York Review Of Books (2005)

RUDOLF NUREYEV
"Surveying choreographers, he said: 'Go and choose brain.' Like Hannibal Lecter, he sawed open the skull and feasted on the cerebrum."

Peter Conrad
in The Observer (2007)

THE RADIO CITY ROCKETTES
"Nothing says Great Depression like the tap-tap-tap of dancing shoes and a long, spangled kick line."

Alessandra Stanley
in The New York Times (2007)

MOIRA SHEARER
The Red Shoes (1948) - "She inspired more girls to dream of Ballerinadom than any since Pavlova ... She danced, with charm and almost infinite promise. She crossed the dance sky like a comet - never to be forgotten."

Clive Barnes
in Dance magazine (2006)

JOHN TRAVOLTA
Saturday Night Fever (1977) - "Travolta jaywalked across the disco floor with the hormonal dazzle of a porno polyester peacock."

Owen Gleiberman
in Entertainment Weekly (2000)

DANCE on FILM

CENTER STAGE (2000)
"This adolescent, awkwardly acted backstage romance wouldn't seem to call for heavy lifters, yet Susan Stroman, a two-time Tony winner, provided choreography with Christopher Wheeldon, of the N.Y. City Ballet. Why didn't they just hire Debbie Allen?"

Rita Kempley
in The Washington Post (2000)

FLASHDANCE (1983)
"A seemingly impossible combination of a feminist Rocky, a bar girl Fame and Jane Fonda's Workout ... the plotting in Flashdance is as loose as the dancing."

Jay Cocks
in Time magazine (1983)

SAVE THE LAST DANCE 2 (2006)
"Turns out it wasn't quite the last dance last time."

Christopher Null
on FilmCritic.com (2006)

SINGIN' IN THE RAIN (1952)
"The choreography and dancing in this film are unforgettable ... The dance numbers in this film make you want to run out and buy a pair of Tap shoes."

Cheryl Northcutt
on ApolloGuide.com

DANCE on STAGE

LA CAGE AUX FOLLES
"Jerry Mitchell has picked Cagelles dancers who are also acrobats, and, sure enough, the high kicks are heaven-storming and the cartwheels could loft a helicopter."

John Simon
in New York magazine (2004)

CHICAGO
"Welcome back to Chicago, where the gin's cold, the piano's hot, the dancing's even hotter ... and all that jazz. "

Octavio Roca
in The San Francisco Chronicle (2003)

42nd STREET
"42nd Street is the Gospel According to Tap Dance."

Skip Sheffield
in The Boca Raton News (1985)