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Fred Astaire
FRED ASTAIRE (born May 10, 1899 – June 22,
1987) was an American film and Broadway stage dancer,
choreographer, singer, musician and actor. His stage and subsequent film and
television careers spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical
films, several award winning television specials, and issued numerous
recordings. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by
the American Film Institute. He is particularly associated with Ginger
Rogers, with whom he made ten films.
Gene Kelly, another major innovator in filmed dance, said that
"the history of dance on film begins with Astaire". Beyond film and
television, many classical dancers and choreographers, Rudolf Nureyev, Sammy
Davis, Jr., Michael Jackson, Gregory Hines,Mikhail Baryshnikov, George
Balanchine and Jerome Robbins among them, also acknowledged his
importance and influence.
Politically,
Astaire was a conservative and a lifelong Republican Party supporter, though
he never made his political views publicly known. Along with Bing
Crosby,George Murphy, Ginger Rogers, and others, he was a charter
(founding) member of the Hollywood Republican Committee. He was
churchgoing, supportive of American military action, and was dismissive of the
more open sexiness of movies in the 1970s.
Always immaculately turned out, he and Cary Grant were
called "the best-dressed actors in American movies". Astaire remained
a male fashion icon even into his later years, eschewing his trademark top hat,
white tie and tails (for which he never really cared) in favor of a breezy
casual style of tailored sports jackets, colored shirts,cravats and
slacks—the latter usually held up by the idiosyncratic use of an old tie in
place of a belt.
Astaire was married for the first time in 1933, to the 25-year-old
Phyllis Potter (née Phyllis Livingston Baker; born 1908, died September 13,
1954), a Boston-born New York socialite and former wife of Eliphalet Nott
Potter III (1906–1981), after pursuing her ardently for roughly two years, and
despite the objections of his mother and sister.Phyllis's death from lung
cancer, at the age of 46, ended 21-years of a blissful marriage and left
Astaire devastated. Astaire attempted to drop out of the film Daddy
Long Legs (1955), which he was in the process of filming, offering to
pay the production costs to date, but was persuaded to stay.
In addition to Phyllis Potter's son, Eliphalet IV (known as
Peter), the Astaires had two children. Fred, Jr. (born January 21, 1936)
appeared with his father in the movie Midas Run, but became a
charter pilot and rancher instead of an actor. He married Gale (born 1938) in
1956. Ava Astaire McKenzie (born March 19, 1942; married Richard MacKenzie)
remains actively involved in promoting her late father's heritage.
His friend, David Niven, described him as "a
pixie—timid, always warm-hearted, with a penchant for schoolboy jokes."
Astaire was a lifelong golf and Thoroughbred horse racing enthusiast.
In 1946 his horse Triplicate won the prestigious Hollywood Gold
Cup and San Juan Capistrano Handicap. He remained physically active
well into his eighties. At age seventy-eight, he broke his left wrist while
riding his grandson's skateboard.
On June 24, 1980, he was married again, to Robyn Smith (born
August 14, 1944), a jockey 45 years his junior, who rode for Alfred G.
Vanderbilt II and was herself, on the cover of Sports Illustrated on
July 31, 1972.
Astaire died from pneumonia on June 22, 1987. He was 88 years old.
He was interred in the Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth,
California. One last request of his was to thank his fans for their years
of support.
Astaire's life has never been portrayed on film. He always
refused permission for such portrayals, saying, "However much they offer
me—and offers come in all the time—I shall not sell." Astaire's will
included a clause requesting that no such portrayal ever take place; he
commented, "It is there because I have no particular desire to have my
life misinterpreted, which it would be."
Tag :
Dancers
Shakira
SHAKIRA ISABEL MEBARAK RIPOLL (born February 2,
1977), known as Shakira, is a Colombian singer-songwriter,
dancer, record producer, choreographer, and model. Born and raised in Barranquilla,
she began performing in school, demonstrating Latin, Arabic,
and rock and roll influences andbelly dancing abilities. Shakira
released her first studio albums, Magia and Peligro,
in the early 1990s, failing to attain commercial success; however, she rose to
prominence in Latin America with her major-label debut, Pies Descalzos (1996),
and her fourth album, Dónde Están los Ladrones? (1998).
Shakira
entered the English-language market with her fifth album, Laundry
Service (2001), which has sold over 20 million copies worldwide.
Its lead single, "Whenever, Wherever", became the best-selling
single of 2002. Her success was solidified with her sixth and seventh
albums Fijación Oral, Vol. 1 and Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 (2005),
the latter of which spawned the best-selling song of the 21st century, "Hips
Don't Lie". Shakira's eighth and ninth albums, She Wolf (2009)
and Sale el Sol (2010), received critical praise but suffered
from limited promotion due to her strained relationship with label Epic
Records. Her official song for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, "Waka Waka
(This Time for Africa)", became the biggest-selling World Cup song of all
time. With over 500 million views, its music video is the sixth
most-watched video on YouTube. Since 2013, Shakira has served as a
coach on the American version of The Voice, although she
temporarily left the series during the fifth season.
Shakira
has won many awards including five MTV Video Music Awards,
two Grammy Awards, ten Latin Grammy Awards, seven Billboard
Music Awards, twenty-eight Billboard Latin Music Awards and has
been Golden Globe-nominated. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame, and she is the highest-selling Colombian artist of all time, having sold
over seventy million albums and fifty million singles.\ Her
U.S. album sales stand at 9.9 million. Outside of her work in the
music industry, Shakira is also involved in philanthropic activities through
charity work and benefit concerts, notably her Pies Descalzos
Foundation, her performance at the "Clinton Global Initiative"
created by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, and her invitation to the
Oval Office by President Barack Obama in February 2010 to discuss
early childhood development.
Shakira was born on February 2, 1977 in Barranquilla,
Colombia. She is the only child of Nidia Ripoll and William Mebarak Chadid. Her
paternal grandparents emigrated fromLebanon to New York City, where her
father was born. From her mother, Nidia Ripoll, she has Spanish (Catalan and Castilian)
and Italian descent. She has eight older half-siblings from her father's
previous marriage. Shakira spent much of her youth in Barranquilla, a
city located in northern Caribbean coast of Colombia. Shakira wrote her first
poem, titled "La Rosa De Cristal" ("The Crystal Rose") when
she was only four years old. As she was growing up, she was fascinated watching
her father writing stories on a typewriter, and asked for one as a
Christmas gift. She got her wish at age seven and continued writing poetry.
These poems eventually evolved into songs. When Shakira was two years old, an
older half-brother was killed in a motorcycle accident and at the age of eight,
Shakira wrote her first song, titled "Tus gafas oscuras" ("Your
dark glasses"), which was inspired by her father, who for years wore dark
glasses to hide his grief.
When Shakira was four, her father took her to a local Middle
Eastern restaurant, where Shakira first heard the doumbek, a traditional
drum used in Arabic music and which typically accompanied belly
dancing. She started dancing on the table, and the experience made her
realize that she wanted to be a performer. She enjoyed singing for schoolmates
and teachers (and even the nuns) at her Catholic school, but in the second
grade was rejected for the school choir because her vibrato was too
strong. The music teacher told her that she sounded "like a
goat". At school, she says she had been known as "the belly
dancer girl", as she would demonstrate every Friday at school a number she
had learned. "That's how I discovered my passion for live
performance," she says. To instill gratitude for her upbringing in
Shakira, her father took her to a local park to see orphans who lived there.
The images stayed with her and she said to herself "one day I'm going to
help these kids when I become a famous artist."
Between the ages of ten and thirteen, Shakira was invited to
various events in Barranquilla and gained some recognition in the area. It
was at about this time that she met local theater producer Monica Ariza, who
was impressed with her and as a result tried to help her career. During a
flight from Barranquilla to Bogotá, Ariza convinced SonyColombia
executive Ciro Vargas to hold an audition for Shakira in a hotel lobby. Vargas
held Shakira in high regard and, returning to the Sony office, gave the
cassette to a song and artist director. However, the director was not overly
excited and thought Shakira was something of "a lost cause". Vargas,
not daunted, was still convinced that Shakira had talent, and set up an
audition in Bogotá. He arranged for Sony Colombia executives to arrive at the
audition, with the idea of surprising them with Shakira's performance. She
performed three songs for the executives and impressed them enough for her to
be signed to record three albums.
Shakira
is a native Spanish speaker who speaks fluent English and Portuguese, as well
as some Italian, French, Catalan and Arabic. Shakira is
a Roman Catholic, and met Pope John Paul II in 1998. She is
interested in world history, and she frequently studies the history and
languages of the countries she visits.After her Oral Fixation tour ended in the
summer of 2007, Shakira attended a summer school class in Los Angeles at UCLA Extensions,
where she took courses in History of Western Civilization. She used her middle
and last names, Isabel Mebarak, and told the professor she was visiting from
Colombia so as to avoid being recognized as a celebrity. Shakira is a
cousin of model and 2005–2006 Miss Colombia, Valerie Domínguez.. In an
interview on The Paul O'Grady Show, she referred to herself as
a mutt due to her diverse ancestry, which she noted as a theme behind
her song "Gypsy".
Chris Brown
CHRISTOPHER MAURICE "CHRIS" BROWN (born
May 5, 1989) is an American recording artist, dancer, and actor.
Born inTappahannock, Virginia, he taught himself to sing and dance at a young
age and was involved in his church choir and several local talent shows. Having
signed with Jive Records in 2004, Brown released his self-titled debut
studio album the following year. It peaked at number two on the US Billboard 200 and
was later certified double platinum by the Recording Industry
Association of America (RIAA). With his first single "Run It!"
peaking atop the US Billboard Hot 100, Brown became the first
male artist as a lead since Diddy in 1997 to have his debut single
top the chart. His second album Exclusive (2007) spawned his
second Hot 100 number one "Kiss Kiss", in addition to "With You"
and "Forever". The album was also certified double platinum by the
RIAA.
In 2009, Brown received much media attention after pleading guilty
to felony assault of singer and his then-girlfriend Rihanna; he was
sentenced to five years of probation and six months of community
service. His third album Graffiti was released later that
year, and included the top-twenty single "I Can Transform Ya".
Brown's fourth album F.A.M.E. (2011) became his first to top
the Billboard 200; it spawned hit singles "Yeah 3x",
"Look at Me Now", and "Beautiful People". F.A.M.E. earned
Brown his first Grammy Award for Best R&B Album at the 54th
Grammy Awards. His fifth album Fortune was released in
2012. However, apart from Exclusive, Brown's albums were not well
received by music critics.
Apart from his work in the music industry, Brown has pursued an
acting career. In 2007, he made his on-screen feature film debut in Stomp
the Yard, and appeared as a guest on the television series The O.C. Other
films Brown has appeared in, include This Christmas (2007), Takers (2010)
and Think Like a Man (2012). Throughout his career, Brown has
won numerous awards, including two NAACP Image Awards, three American
Music Awards and nine BET Awards.
Tag :
Dancers
Prabhu Deva
PRABHU
DEVA (born 3 April 1973 ), is an Indian film choreographer,
stage dancer, actor and director known for
his works predominantly in Tamil, Telugu cinema, Bollywood, Malayalam and Kannada
films. In a career spanning twenty-five years, He has performed and designed a
wide range of dancing styles. He has garnered two National Film Awardsfor Best
Choreography, and has been widely known by the media as India's Michael
Jackson.
After a sequence of successful attempts in acting in the 1990s and
early 2000s such as Kadhalan (1994), Raasaiyya (1995),Minsara
Kanavu (1997), Naam Iruvar Namakku Iruvar (1998), Kaathala
Kaathala (1998) and Vanathai Pola (2000), Prabhu
Dheva ventured into direction with 2005 Telugu blockbuster Nuvvostanante
Nenoddantana. He then went on to direct successful films in Telugu, Hindi and
Tamil languages such as Shankardada Zindabad (2007), Pokkiri (Tamil)(2007), Wanted (2009)
andRowdy Rathore (2012).
Prabhu Dheva was born in chennai to Kannada Lingayat family.
His father, Mugur Sundar (known as Sundaram Master), was a
choreographer for South Indian movies. His family later moved to Chennai
where he grew up. Prabhu Dheva was inspired by his father and took up
dancing learning Indian classical dance forms such as Bharatanatyam from
Dharmaraj and Udipi Lakshminarayanan as well as Western styles. Raju
Sundaram and Nagendra Prasad are his brothers.
Prabhu Deva first appeared as a background dancer for a song in
the 1988 Tamil film Agni Natchathiram. Deva's first venture as
a choreographer was Vetri Vizha (1989). He has since then
choreographed in over 100 movies. From choreography, he went into acting. His
first film as an actor was Indhu (1994) with actress Roja.
In 1999, Dheva,Shobhana and A. R. Rahman performed with a Tamil
cinema dancing troupe at the "Michael Jackson and Friends" concert
in Munich, Germany. He acted alongside his brothers in the
movie One Two Three. As of 2010, he serves as chairman and director
of the Prabhudheva's Dance Academy in Singapore. He planned to
release his first video album called It is boring in 2013. He
also played the lead role in ABCD (Any Body Can Dance), the first
3D dance film in India.
Prabhu Dheva married Ramlath who converted from Christianity to
Hinduism and changed her name to Latha; they had three children - their eldest
son (Basavaraju/Vishal) died of cancer in 2008.
During the making of the film Villu in 2008, there
were reports that he and actress Nayantara fell in love on the sets
with some reports even claiming that he married her secretly in June
2009. She had tattooed his name on her wrist and began appearing with him
in public, while neither denying nor confirming the relationship. In
September 2010, Prabhu Dheva openly confessed his love for Nayantara and
further stated that he would marry her soon. The issue gained media attention
and turned into a controversy, since Prabhu Dheva was not divorced from
Ramalath. Prabhu Dheva publicly claimed that his marriage to Ramalath was
invalid; he privately wed Nayantara after she underwent conversion to Hinduism.
Unwilling to grant a divorce, she filed a petition at the family court, seeking
directions against her husband and Nayantara marrying, attending
functions together and receiving awards as husband and wife, and requesting a
reunion with him. Furthermore, Ramalath threatened to go on hunger
strike if Prabhu Dheva married Nayantara, while several women's
organizations conducted protests against Nayantara for bringing
disrepute to Tamil culture, burning an effigy of her. In 2012,
Nayantara confirmed that she had ended her relationship with Prabhu Deva.
Prabhu Dheva has moved to Mumbai and is residing at Boney Kapoor's
old place in Green Acres.
Tag :
Dancers
Katherine Dunham
KATHERINE DUNHAM (June 22, 1909 – May 21,
2006) was an American dancer, choreographer, author, educator, and
social activist. Dunham had one of the most successful dance careers in
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".
During
her heyday in the 1940s and 1950s, Dunham was renowned throughout Europe and
Latin America and was widely popular in the United States, where the Washington
Post called her "dancer Katherine the Great". For almost
thirty years she maintained the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, the only
self-supported American black dance troupe at that time, and over her long
career she choreographed more than ninety individual dances. Dunham
was an innovator in African-American modern dance as well as a leader
in the field of dance anthropology, or ethnochoreology.
In 1928, while still an undergraduate, Dunham began to study
ballet with Ludmilla Speranzeva, a Russian dancer who had settled in Chicago,
having come to the United States with the Franco-Russian vaudeville troupe Le
Théâtre de la Chauve-Souris directed by impresario Nikita Balieff. She also
studied ballet with Mark Turbyfill and Ruth Page, who became prima
ballerina of the Chicago Opera. Through her ballet teachers, she was also
exposed to Spanish, East Indian, Javanese, and Balinese dance forms. In 1931,
when she was only 21, Dunham formed a group called Ballets Nègres, one of the
first black ballet companies in the United States. After a single,
well-received performance in 1931, the group was disbanded. Encouraged by
Speranzeva to focus on modern dance instead of ballet, Dunham opened her first
real dance school in 1933 called the Negro Dance Group. It was a venue for
Dunham to teach young black dancers about their African heritage.
In 1934–36 Dunham performed as a guest artist with the ballet
company of the Chicago Opera. Ruth Page had written a scenario and
choreographed La Guiablesse ("The Devil Woman"),
based on a Martinican folk tale in Lafcadio Hearn's Two Years in
the French West Indies. It opened in Chicago in 1933, with a black cast and
with Page dancing the title role. The next year it was repeated with Katherine
Dunham in the lead and with students from Dunham's Negro Dance Group in the
ensemble. Her dance career was then interrupted by her anthropological research
in the Caribbean.
Having completed her undergraduate work at the University of
Chicago and having made the decision to pursue a career as a dancer and
choreographer rather than as an academic, Dunham revived her dance ensemble and
in 1937 journeyed with them to New York to take part in "A Negro Dance
Evening" organized by Edna Guy at the 92nd Street YMHA. The troupe
performed a suite of West Indian dances in the first half of the program and a
ballet entitled Tropic Death, with Talley Beatty, in the second
half. Upon returning to Chicago, the company performed at the Goodman Theater
and at the Abraham Lincoln Center. Dunham's well-known works Rara Tonga and Woman
with a Cigar were created at this time. With choreography characterized
by exotic sexuality, both became signature works in the Dunham repertory. After
successful performances of her company, Dunham was named dance director of the
Chicago Negro Theater Unit of the Federal Theater Project. In this post, she
choreographed the Chicago production of Run Li'l Chil'lun,
performed at the Goodman Theater, and produced several other works of
choreography including The Emperor Jones and Barrelhouse.
At this time Dunham first became associated with designer John
Pratt, whom she later married. Together, they produced the first version of her
dance composition L'Ag'Ya, which premiered on January 27, 1938, as
a part of the Federal Theater Project in Chicago. Based on her research in
Martinique, this three-part performance integrated elements of a Martinique
fighting dance into American ballet to achieve a remarkable degree of
syncretism. This blending of cultures also appeared in the way that Dunham
skillfully and stylistically employed choreographic techniques to evoke images
of Afro-Caribbean customs and art.
In 1939, Dunham's company gave further performances in Chicago and
Cincinnati and then went back to New York, where Dunham had been invited to
stage a new number for the popular, long-running musical revue Pins and
Needles 1940, produced by the International Ladies' Garment Workers
Union. As this show continued its run at the Windsor Theater, Dunham booked her
own company in the theater for a Sunday performance. This concert, billed
as Tropics and Le Hot Jazz, included not only her
favorite partners Archie Savage and Talley Beatty but her principal Haitian
drummer, Papa Augustin. Initially scheduled for a single performance, the show
was so popular that the troupe repeated it for another ten Sundays.
This success led to the entire company being engaged in the
Broadway production Cabin in the Sky, staged by George
Balanchine and starring Ethel Waters. With Dunham in the sultry role
of temptress Georgia Brown, the show ran for twenty weeks in New York before
moving to the West Coast for an extended run of performances there. Most
critics called it a draw.
After the national tour of Cabin in the Sky, the
Dunham company stayed in Los Angeles, where they appeared in the Warner
Brothers short film Carnival of Rhythm (1941). The next year
Dunham appeared in the Paramount musical film Star Spangled Rhythm (1942)
in a specialty number, "Sharp as a Tack," with Eddie
"Rochester" Anderson. Other movies she appeared in during this period
included the Abbott and Costello comedy Pardon My Sarong (1942)
and the famous break-through black musical Stormy Weather (1943).
Later that year, they returned to New York, and in September 1943,
under the management of the renowned impresario Sol Hurok, her troupe
opened in Tropical Review at the Martin Beck Theater.
Featuring lively Latin American and Caribbean dances, plantation dances, and
American social dances, the show was an immediate success. The original
two-week engagement was extended by popular demand into a three-month run,
after which the company embarked on an extensive tour of the United States and
Canada. In Boston, the bastion of conservatism, the show was banned in 1944
after only one performance. Although it was well received by the audience,
local censors feared that the revealing costumes and provocative dances might
compromise public morals. After the tour, in 1945, the Dunham company appeared
in the short-lived Blue Holiday at the Belasco Theater in New
York and in the more successful Carib Song at the Adelphi
Theatre. The finale to the first act of this show was Shango, a
staged interpretation of a Vodun ritual that would become a permanent part of
the company's repertory.
In 1946 Dunham returned to Broadway for a revue entitled Bal
Nègre, which received glowing notices from theater and dance critics. Early
in 1947 Dunham choreographed the musical play Windy City, which
premiered at the Great Northern Theater in Chicago, and later in the year she
opened a cabaret show in Las Vegas, marking the first year that the city became
a popular entertainment destination. Later that year she went with her troupe
to Mexico, where their performances were so popular that they remained for more
than two months. After Mexico, Dunham began touring in Europe, where she was an
immediate sensation. In 1948 she opened A Caribbean Rhapsody first
at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London, then swept on to the Théâtre des
Champs-Élysées in Paris, where the company took the city by storm. She and her
dancers were treated as members of the jet set, mixing with nobility and
celebrities such as famous French actor Maurice Chevalier.
This was the beginning of more than twenty years of performing
almost exclusively outside America. During these years, the Dunham company
appeared in some thirty-three countries in Europe, North Africa, South America,
Australia, and East Asia. Dunham continued to develop dozens of new productions
during this period, and the company met with enthusiastic audiences wherever
they went. Despite these successes, the company frequently ran into periods of
financial difficulties, as Dunham was required to support all of the thirty to
forty dancers and musicians.
In 1948, Dunham and her company appeared in the Hollywood
movie Casbah, with Tony Martin, Yvonne de Carlo, and Peter
Lorre, and in the Italian film Botta e Risposta, produced by Dino
de Laurentiis. Also that year they appeared in the first ever hour-long
American spectacular televised by NBC when television was first
beginning to spread across America. This was followed by television
spectaculars filmed in London, Buenos Aires, Toronto, Sydney, and Mexico City.
In 1950, Sol Hurok presented Katherine Dunham and Her Company in a
dance revue at the Broadway Theater in New York, with a program composed of
some of Dunham's best works. It closed after only thirty-eight performances,
and the company soon thereafter embarked on a tour of venues in South America,
Europe, and North Africa. They had particular success in Denmark and France. In
the mid-1950s, Dunham and her company appeared in three films: Mambo (1954),
made in Italy; Die Grosse Starparade(1954), made in Germany;
and Música en la Noche (1955), made in Mexico City.
The Dunham company's international tours ended in Vienna in 1960,
when it was stranded without money because of bad management by their
impresario. Dunham saved the day by arranging for the company to appear in a
German television special, Karaibishe Rhythmen, after which they
returned to America. Dunham's last appearance on Broadway was in 1962 in Bamboche!,
which included a few former Dunham dancers in the cast and a contingent of
dancers and dummers from the Royal Troupe of Morocco. It was not a success,
closing after only eight performances.
A highlight of Dunham's later career was the invitation from New
York's Metropolitan Opera to stage dances for a new production
of Aida starring Leontyne Price. Thus, in 1963, she became the
first African-American to choreograph for the Met since Hemsley Winfield set
the dances for The Emperor Jones in 1933. The critics
acknowledged the historical research she did on dance in ancient Egypt but did
not particularly care for the results they saw on the Met
stage. Subsequently, Dunham undertook various choreographic commissions at
several venues in the United States and in Europe. In 1967 she officially
retired after presenting a final show at the famous Apollo Theater inHarlem,
New York. Even in retirement Dunham continued to choreograph: one of her major
works was directing Scott Joplin's opera Treemonisha in
1972 at Morehouse College in Atlanta.
In 1978 Dunham was featured in the PBS special, Divine
Drumbeats: Katherine Dunham and Her People, narrated by James Earl
Jones, as part of the Dance in Americaseries. Alvin Ailey later
produced a tribute for her in 1987-8 with his American Dance Theater at
Carnegie Hall entitled The Magic of Katherine Dunham.
Tag :
Dancers
Michael Jackson
MICHAEL JOSEPH JACKSON (August 29, 1958 –
June 25, 2009) was an American singer-songwriter, dancer, businessmanand philanthropist.
Often referred to by the honorific nickname "King of Pop",
or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most
successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His
contributions to music, dance, and fashion, along with his publicized personal
life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four
decades.
The eighth child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the
professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The
Jackson 5 in 1964, and began his solo career in 1971. In the early 1980s,
Jackson became the dominant figure in popular music. The music videos for
his songs, including those of "Beat It," "Billie Jean," and
"Thriller," were credited with breaking down racial barriers and
transforming the medium into an art form and promotional tool. The popularity
of these videos helped to bring the then relatively new television
channel MTV to fame. With videos such as "Black or White"
and "Scream" he continued to innovate the medium throughout the
1990s, as well as forging a reputation as a touring solo artist. Through stage
and video performances, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance
techniques, such as the robot, and the moonwalk, to which he gave the
name. His distinctive sound and style has influenced numerous hip hop, post-disco, contemporary
R&B, pop, androck artists.
Jackson's
1982 album Thriller is the best-selling album of all time.
His other records, including Off the Wall (1979), Bad (1987),Dangerous (1991),
and HIStory (1995), also rank among the world's best-selling.
Jackson is one of the few artists to have been inducted into the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame twice. He was also inducted into the Dance Hall of Fame
as the first and only dancer from pop and rock music. Some of his other achievements include
multiple Guinness World Records; 13 Grammy Awards as well as
the Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement
Award; 26 American Music Awards, more than any other artist, including the
"Artist of the Century" and "Artist of the 1980s"; 13 number-one
singles in the United Statesin his solo career, more than any other male artist
in the Hot 100 era; and the estimated sale of over 400 million
records worldwide. Jackson has won hundreds of awards, making him the
most-awarded recording artist in the history of popular music. In what
would have been Jackson's 52nd birthday on August 29, 2010, he became the most
downloaded artist of all time. Jackson constantly traveled the
world attending events honoring his humanitarianism and the 2000 Guinness Book
of Records recognized him for supporting 39 charities.
Aspects of Jackson's personal life, including his changing appearance, personal
relationships, and behavior, generated controversy. In the mid-1990s, he
was accused of child sexual abuse, but the case was settled out of court
for about $25 million and no formal charges were brought. In 2005, he
was tried and acquitted of further child sexual abuse allegations and
several other charges after the jury found him not guilty on all counts.
While preparing for his comeback concert series titled This
Is It, Jackson died of acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication
on June 25, 2009, after suffering from cardiac arrest. The Los Angeles
County Coroner ruled his death a homicide, and his personal physician was convicted of involuntary
manslaughter. Jackson's death triggered a global outpouring of grief and a live
broadcast of his public memorial service was viewed around the world.
Tag :
Dancers
Paula Abdul
PAULA
JULIE ABDUL (born June 19, 1962) is an American singer, songwriter,
dancer, choreographer, actress and television personality. She began her career
as a cheerleader for the Los Angeles Lakers before rising
to prominence in the 1980s as a highly sought-after choreographer at the height
of the music video era. Abdul later scored a string of pop music hits in the
late 1980s and early 1990s. Her six number one singles on the Billboard
Hot 100 tie her with Diana Ross for sixth among the female solo
performers who have topped the chart. She won a
Grammy for "Best Music Video – Short Form" for "Opposites
Attract" and twice won the "Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding
Choreography".
After her
initial period of success, Abdul suffered a series of setbacks in her
professional and personal life. She saw renewed fame and success as an original
judge on American Idol in the 2000s, which she left after the
eighth season. She went on to star on CBS' short-lived television
series Live to Dance, which lasted one season in 2011, and was
subsequently a judge on the first season of the American version of The
X Factor along with her former American Idol co-judge Simon
Cowell, the creator and producer of the show. She was
also a guest judge on the All-Stars edition of Dancing with
the Stars in 2012 and the tenth season of So You
Think You Can Dance in 2013.
On January 30, 2013, Paula Abdul was presented with a Lifetime
Achievement Award at The Carnival: Choreographer's Ball14th
anniversary show.
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Dancers
