Tag: Dance
Back in 1985 through some contact in Germany I vaguely remember as “clown David” (hello, wherever you are!), I got hold of what I’m pretty sure was the first tape of Grock’s full-length show to make its way to the United States. We premiered it on what today would be considered a small television set for an appreciative audience (that included Bill Irwin) at our 2nd NY International Clown-Theatre Festival. Also on that tape was this unidentified clip starring Charlie Cairoli (1910—1980) doing some musical clowning and busting out with some killer dance steps. I guess it’s rarer than I realized, because not only don’t I see it anywhere on the web, I don’t see any of his work.
Please welcome guest poster Jeff Raz! This is just the first paragraph of his full and very impressive bio
Today we celebrate the birth and career of Ray Bolger (January 10, 1904 – January 15, 1987), vaudevillian and song & dance man best known for his portrayal of the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz (1939).
But it is physical, and it is funny in a joyous laughter kind of way. Two hundred dancers and a whole lot of hidden cameras descend upon the unsuspecting commuters at the majestic Antwerpen Central Station and go wild to the sound of my old girlfriend, Julie Andrews.
I’m no expert on Frankie Manning or the lindy hop, but both are worth knowing about regardless of any indirect connection with physical comedy. Manning made it to just short of his 95th birthday, active almost to the end, and left behind a lifetime of achievement in developing and popularizing the lindy hop. The NY Times obituary is a good starting point, but also check out the Frankie Manning web site and the Wikipedia entry.
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Workshops & Other Events
My first book (1976)
My book Clowns has long been out of print, but you can borrow it for two weeks at a time from the Internet Archive. More information is available here.
My second book (2015)
Visual and verbal humor for the cognitively and artistically curious! Available here.
“A book to treasure!”
—Bill Irwin