Michael and Janet and Miss Dunham

Last night at Walter Reade, Yumi and I saw a program titled "Pop Video Artists and Hollywood Influence" which I vaguely knew would be about the connection between Hollywood and pop music. Searching the "Dance on Camera 2008-Film Society of Lincoln Center" site today I found a more thorough description,* but going into it I had no idea what to expect. It was fabulous. Curated and with minimal and intelligent commentary by Armond White (he wasn't excited to be up there with a mic hearing himself talk; it really was about the footage, and he knew his shit), the program featured, in this order:

"Jam" (Michael, 1992)
West Side Story, "Prologue" (1961)
"Beat It" (Michael, 1983)
Cabaret, "Mein Herr" (1972)
"What Have You Done for Me Lately?" (Janet, 1986)
Stormy Weather, Cab Calloway performing "Geechy Dan" (1943)
"Alright" (Janet, 1991)
The Band Wagon, "The Girl Hunt Ballet" (1953)
"Smooth Criminal" (Michael, 1987)
Singin' in the Rain, "Singing in the Rain" (1952)
"Black or White" (Michael, 1991)

I hadn't seen the video for "Alright" in probably fifteen years, definitely not since I'd seen Stormy Weather, and I was amazed by how closely the set in the video matches the outdoor set in Stormy Weather. I also didn't realize, until watching "What Have You Done for Me Lately," that Janet's dancing and Paula's choreography of course have more influenced my own dancing than Katherine Dunham's technique ever will--since I have owned "Control" since I was nine, and I grew up on MTV, but didn't discover Dunham until college.

However, my first exposure to Cab Calloway came early--Yumi didn't know what I was talking about (she's 25) but Nick is my age, and when I said, "You remember Cab Calloway on Sesame Street, right?" he just nodded.





*http://www.filmlinc.com/wrt/onsale/doc08/program14.html [yes, my ideas about writing and presentation of language and ideas are extremely old-fashioned--there are generally no footnotes in blog posts, I suppose. too bad.]