Synopses of Conference Presentations
(in alphabetical order by presenter)
Chris and Rob Bamberger
Astaire as Actor Within and Outside of Dance: The Sky’s the Limit
The Sky’s the Limit (1943) may be one of Fred Astaire’s least known
films, and many write-ups about it have dismissed it as a stock
musical. For years the leading guide to movies on television used
the word ‘fluff’ to describe it. But, as writer John Mueller
observed, the film is not so much a musical as a dark comedy with
music. Its relative obscurity has contributed to narrow perceptions
of Astaire’s on-screen persona and the breadth of his range as an
actor as well as a dancer.
Joining Astaire in the cast is Joan Leslie, persuasive as a career
woman well ahead of her time. Humorist and alum of the Algonquin
Round Table, Robert Benchley, reprises his addled Treasurer’s
Report, but is no mere sidekick, and delivers a poignant performance
in his own right. Sky’s introduced ‘One For My Baby,’ destined to be
an American popular song standard; Astaire’s accompanying dance may
well be the edgiest he ever committed to film.
Chris and Rob Bamberger will amplify on these themes and discuss the
making of the movie and its fundamental text—the disconnect between
war and home front that shapes and torments the Flying Tiger pilot
Astaire portrays.
Ken Barnes
Fred Astaire as Singer and Recording Artist
Outside of his dancing, Fred Astaire is equally renowned for having
introduced more great songs to the popular catalogue than any other
performer in history. This presentation will look at the quality of
these songs and Astaire’s interpretation of them onstage, onscreen
and in commercial recordings. Of particular interest is the fact
that his recording career began and ended in London. In July and
August of 1975, he recorded a series of nine sessions resulting in
three albums in as many weeks (which included a treasurable duet
album with Bing Crosby). As producer of these albums, Ken Barnes
recalls the stories behind these sessions, which formed the start of
a 12-year friendship with Mr. Astaire. Barnes also discusses the
impact that Astaire’s singing had on his songwriters and on other
artists.
Betsy Baytos
Footage from the Fred Stone Collection of the Broadway show Gay
Divorce (1933)
Starring Fred Astaire, Dorothy Stone, Eric Blore
During her extensive research on eccentric dance, historian Betsy
Baytos developed a close relationship with the New York Performing
Arts Library, and through a grant from the Jerome Robbins
Foundation, she began working to establish the first oral history on
eccentric dance, as well as overseeing the film restoration of the
rare Fred Stone Collection (Stone himself was one of the great
exponents of the eccentric tradition). Within this collection is the
film presented here, of Stone’s daughter Dorothy dancing in Gay
Divorce on the Broadway stage with Fred Astaire. Betsy will begin
her presentation with a quick overview of the eccentric dance field
and her research into innovator Fred Stone, the original Wizard of
Oz scarecrow onstage. She also will discuss how the style of
eccentric dance was an element of the work of Fred and Adele
Astaire.
G. Bruce Boyer
The Triumph of Style: Fred Astaire as the New Man
In the 1920s and ’30s there evolved a new form of hero, seen in the
rise of the ‘crooner,’ in more realistic movie acting, and in the
jazzmen and dancers who came out of the Harlem Renaissance.
The New Man was a hero with a natural grace and a common touch,
rather than the grand gestures of a previous era. It was no longer a
matter of breeding and wealth and formality; but casualness,
vitality, and fashionable poise.
Fred Astaire embodied this new type of hero whose style itself drove
him to prevail. He broke step with the spats and celluloid collars
and stiff, little suits, to become the first popular trans-Atlantic
dandy who could saunter down a street with his hands in his pockets,
hat tipped to the side to do battle with the Old World, and win the
girl in the bargain. It was the triumph of style.
Patricia Carley
Yolanda and the Thief: an Under-Appreciated Astaire Oddity
Patricia Carley examines one of Fred Astaire’s oddest movies—one
that often gathers dust amongst the film collections of even
Astaire’s most ardent fans. When looked at through a wider lens,
however, it is possible to discover how unusual and remarkable the
film is.
Despite an absurd plot, the treacly character played by Lucille
Bremer, and the relative absence of dance numbers, there are
intriguing aspects of Yolanda that demonstrate the film’s
interesting and likeable qualities. Its mythical setting is bizarre
but also entrancing, presented in Vincente Minnelli’s trademark
lavish colors and imaginative costumes. The lengthy dream ballet is
remarkable for its time, with modern choreography and a musical
score that hints at minimalism. There is also the clear influence of
surrealism, which was the rage at that time in Hollywood. Finally,
there is the unusual—and overt—place of religion in the movie, which
is both mocked and revered.
Paula Marantz Cohen
The Cinematic Astaire: Astaire’s Use of Interior Landscape
Cohen’s presentation will explore Astaire’s unique affinity for the
medium of film by placing him in the tradition of such early movie
stars as Douglas Fairbanks and Buster Keaton. Like Astaire,
Fairbanks and Keaton were extraordinarily graceful, athletic
figures. However, their physical prowess was often exercised in
exterior space—that traditional American playground of the great
outdoors.
Astaire exercised his in a more modern, interior space—the
acculturated terrain of the hotel, the dance studio, or the
ballroom.
The Astaire musical reflected an evolution in the cinematic medium.
Its musical numbers and social repartee highlighted the innovation
of sound, and its settings reflected the shift to a more
domesticated, urban society. Astaire in his appearance, his personal
style, and in the way he insisted on filming his dance numbers
represented a new kind of refined, even stylized, but nonetheless
exuberant image of physicality on screen.
Philip Davey
The Greatest Cross-Cast of Our Time: Fred Astaire in
On the Beach
If Stanley Kramer’s memorable production of On the Beach was billed
as ‘The Greatest Story of Our Time’, then surely Kramer’s
controversial choice of Fred Astaire to play a disillusioned nuclear
physicist in Nevil Shute’s apocalyptic thriller could be described
as the ‘greatest cross-cast of our time’.
Already under fire from United Artists for his determination to
produce such a depressing doomsday film, the iconoclastic
producer-director—acting on a ‘gut-feeling’—stuck to his guns and
insisted Astaire was perfect for the role.
While this presentation will briefly outline the Cold War context,
impact and legacy of On the Beach, discussion will focus primarily
on the circumstances behind Astaire’s casting; Nevil Shute’s
characterisation; several difficult and moving key scenes; Kramer’s
outstanding direction in eliciting the performance he wanted;
anecdotal accounts from crew members; Astaire’s life away from the
set, and his involvement with the Australian racing industry.
Todd Decker
‘Jack the Bell Boy’: Fred Astaire and Other Jazz Musicians
After Blue Skies (1946), Fred Astaire announced his retirement. But
he didn’t stop dancing for long, and it was a jazz record that
sparked his desire to return to work. In Astaire’s words: ‘I was
playing a record of Lionel Hampton’s “Jack the Bell Boy” one day and
it “sent” me right through the ceiling. I thought to myself, “I
might as well be doing this someplace where it counts.” The urge and
inspiration to go back to work had hit me.’
Starting with Hampton’s record, this selective overview of Astaire’s
work on film, television, and records considers his interaction with
jazz musicians and jazz settings. The narrative contexts and
contents of his solo dances, his recurring collaborations with
African American musicians, and the range of popular culture
contexts within which he worked prove central to understanding
Astaire’s creative output as a form of jazz practice rooted in swing
time.
Peter Evans
Foils for Fred: The Supporting Roles in Top Hat
Relying on the work of, among others, Judith Roof (All About Thelma
and Eve: Sidekicks and Third Wheels, University of Illinois Press,
2002), this paper explores the functional, gendered and class roles
of the supporting characters. Interesting in themselves as fools of
love, or comic representations of the real rather than the ideal,
the minor characters are also foils for Astaire and Rogers, their
star meanings and their roles in the films. Sometimes deployed as
obstacle (Beddini), or as confidant(e)s (Horace, Madge, Bates), in
the lovers’ progress towards union, they also project the audience’s
sense of national identity, confirming the Americanness of the
central couple, its wish-fulfillment ideal.
Alessandra Garofalo
‘Austerlitz Sounded Too Much Like a Battle:’ Fred Astaire’s Austrian
Roots
In this presentation, Alessandra Garofalo will explore the roots of
the Austerlitz family (Fred Astaire was born Frederick Austerlitz in
1899) and will examine in particular the background of Astaire’s
family and its European origins from the eighteenth century through
the first half of the twentieth. Some details of Astaire’s childhood
and life are also interwoven with this story line.
This information comes mostly from the vital records of the various
city archives of the towns where the family members lived,
accompanied by news of the main historical events that characterized
the various periods.
‘Austerlitz sounded too much like a battle’ is the phrase with which
Fred Astaire once explained why Claude Alvienne, his first dance
teacher in New York in 1905, and his mother Ann decided to change
the family name from Austerlitz to Astaire, at the dawning of a
glorious theatre career.
Beth Genné
‘He is like Bach’: Astaire, Balanchine and Ballet
Fred Astaire would probably have reacted with astonishment and
bewilderment to George Balanchine’s statement comparing him to
Johann Sebastian Bach. Yet Balanchine could not have been more
serious. Mikhail Baryshnikov, Rudolph Nureyev and others in the
world of ballet were equally in awe of Astaire. This presentation
explores Astaire’s influence on ballet, concentrating in particular
on the work of George Balanchine, who first saw Astaire in London in
the 1920s and remained an admirer all his life. Genné will also look
at how the spread of ballet (mostly by Russian émigrés) in America
beginning in the 1930s affected Astaire, who himself danced with
ballet-trained Tilly Losch, Harriet Hoctor, Leslie Caron and Cyd
Charisse.
Andrew Klevan
Internalizing the Musical: The Uneventful, the Missable and the
Suspended in Fred Astaire’s Performance
In his book Philosophy the Day after Tomorrow, philosopher
Stanley Cavell focuses on Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon,
especially in the opening number ‘By Myself’, writing that ‘it seems
nearly as uneventful as a photographed song can be’ and has,
therefore, a significance that may be ‘missable’.
Andrew Klevan will explore further this notion of the ‘missable’ in
other moments of The Band Wagon, showing that an
underappreciated quality of performances on film, particularly
Astaire’s, may be found in moments that are passing, preparatory or
apparently unrealized. This is especially worth pointing out in
musicals where the major song and dance sequences, extraordinarily
striking and declamatory in their skilfulness (and so eagerly
awaited) take centre stage.
Klevan also discusses the unusual Astaire film, The Sky’s the
Limit, one he claims to be an uncomfortably subdued film,
introverted even, in order to explore the way performances may
internalize musicality in a genre more commonly celebrated for its
outward, exuberant show of song and dance.
Michael Morley
Dancing Feet And Metric Feet: A Note on the Number ‘Slap That Bass’
from Shall We Dance
While critical views on the musical quality of the Fred Astaire
number ‘Slap That Bass’ are divided, the sequence itself is
interesting for a number of reasons, not least for the fact that it
prompted one of the twentieth century’s major poets to cite it as an
important reference in a crucial essay on metrics and rhythm. At the
same time, the wider discourse of the film (on the tension between
‘high’ and ‘low’ art qua dance) is reflected in the actual choice of
the number as a support for the poet’s suggestion that the sounds of
the modern world need to be reflected in verse which responds to,
and catches, these rhythms.
John Mueller
The Choreography of Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire was one of the master choreographers in the history of
dance. His many masterpieces are notable for their wit, their
musicality, and (despite the fact that he was generally working
within the cliché-ridden forms of tap and ballroom) their dazzling
inventiveness. They are also at once economical and complicated. The
works are economical in the sense that each dance explores only one
or two specific themes inspired by such qualities as the plot
situation, the music, his partner’s dance capacities (or
limitations), or a key movement idea. They are complicated in that
each contains an endless-revisitable texture of subtle nuance. This
presentation will analyse several of Astaire’s dances to show how
these qualities are developed.
Kathleen Riley
‘Nothing like them since the Flood’: Fred and Adèle Astaire on the
London Stage
‘Columbus may have danced with joy at discovering America, but how
he would have cavorted had he also discovered Fred and Adèle
Astaire!’ Thus enthused the usually sedate London Times when the Astaires first appeared on stage in the city that made them stars
and lifelong Anglophiles. The premiere of Stop Flirting, at the
Shaftesbury Theatre on 30 May 1923, signalled the beginning of
London’s love affair with Fred and Adèle and of a true transatlantic
phenomenon. Throughout the rest of the decade the Astaires were not
only leading exponents, but also pioneering exporters, of one of
America’s few indigenous art forms, the Broadway musical. Three of
their shows transferred to London, For Goodness Sake (re-titled
Stop
Flirting), Lady, Be Good! and Funny Face. The Astaires became the
darlings of royalty and were befriended by a veritable ‘who’s who’
of literary and theatrical London, including Bernard Shaw, J.M.
Barrie, John Galsworthy, A.A. Milne, Hugh Walpole and Somerset
Maugham.
This paper will briefly examine the unique essence of Fred and
Adèle’s successful stage partnership before exploring in detail
their transformation of London musical theatre and their impact on
London society. It will also consider the importance of London—the
scene of his theatrical swansong—to Fred’s nascent solo career.
Patricia Eliot Tobias
Fred Astaire’s Greatest Partner: The Camera
It’s almost impossible not to watch Fred Astaire when he’s dancing
on the screen. He involved the audience in his performances in ways
no one had done previously. In part, this is because he innately
understood the role the camera plays in presenting dance on film.
Like the silent filmmakers 10 years earlier—particularly Buster
Keaton and Douglas Fairbanks—Astaire grasped the effectiveness of
using medium long shots and long takes to film movement.
In essence, Astaire choreographed not only himself and his onscreen
dancing partners, but also the camera. In Astaire’s dances, the
rules are simple and the camera movements subtle, but the way he
choreographed the camera with his dancing is fundamental to
understanding and appreciating what he did on film.
This presentation will explore how Astaire used the camera to
enhance our appreciation of his own dancing and how that changed the
nature of dance on film.
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