Screenland Plus TV-Land (Nov 1952 - Oct 1953)

Know This About Dancing Continued from page 38 way to woo that the etiquette books okay. True," he said, "not every man who takes a girl to a nightclub or a dance really cares about keeping time to music. ..." •'But if he is interested in making time with the girl," I laughed, "all's fair in love and dancing, eh?" Gene, who had been working for hours that morning on dance routines that require the energy of an athletic champ, snuck in a few quick bites of food, warmed the heart of the waitress by admonishing her with mock sternness not :.o dare remove his plate until every bite was eaten, and picked up our conversation just where we'd left it. "After all," he said with an expressive lift of his fork, "we know that the three basic needs of people are food, shelter and sex. But our emotions need and respond to many things. Music is one of them. Wherever there's music, dance follows," he said earnestly. "Dancing is an important part of living ... as well as loving," he smiled. "Dancing is so much more than just a form of entertainment," he said with seriousness. "It's a part of romance, it's a way that children learn how to coordinate mind and body, it's a way to develop grace and rhythm — and endurance," he added. "It's just as athletic as playing tennis or football," he went on. eyes dancing with enthusiasm for his subject, "and a lot better for body development than lifting bar bells," he claimed, "because it's strenuous exercise done to rhythm." "Gene," I said, "I suppose you feel that dancing is something that should be started in early childhood?" "I didn't think so when I was a child," he laughed. "My mother insisted on dressing my brother James and me in our Sunday best — Buster Brown collars and Windsor ties — and sending us through the everyday streets of Pittsburgh to dancing school. We loved the dancing, but after two years of relentless teasing by the kid in the neighborhood and after countless impromptu bouts to prove our manliness, we convinced Mom that we'd better discontinue the dancing lessons until we'd developed more muscles. "Seriously, though," Gene said, "although starting to dance young is ideal, age isn't the most important thing. A desire to dance and a response to music are what count. Why," he interrupted himself, "do you know that one of the best ballet dancers in this movie we're making never had a dance lesson until lie was nineteen!" That is unusual for a young man who lias a professional ballet career in mind. I must have looked surprised. Gene put my mind straight. "Anyone who feels music and has something to say with his feet can dance," he assured me. "People keep asking me how I can keep on thinking up new routines. Why I could manufacture a thousand steps a day," he declared, "but it's not the steps 66 that count. What's important is the impression they convey of the meaning behind them." Gene had made his point well. At no age should anyone feel embarrassed about trying to dance because he doesn't know the steps. It's opening one's ears to the music and responding to its rhythm that count. "But then," I suggested, "I'd think that the younger a child is when exposed to dancing, the better his or her chance to respond instinctively to the music. . . ." "Oh," he quickly tagged me, "there's not a doubt about what early dance lessons do for children if they take an interest. When I taught dancing in Pittsburgh (Gene conducted a dancing school in his home town for seven years) I traced what happened to the kids. You'll be interested to know that the best dancing students had the best grades in school. It's pretty clear that the training kids get from dancing in co-ordination of mind and muscle helps them tremendously in having fun, learning to get along with people, in athletics and general alertness. That is," he reminded, "if they want to go to dancing school. "And they usually do, I think," he pondered, "if it's fun. Our school ivas fun for the kids," he admitted, "and they wanted to come there, so I think they got a little extra out of it. "I never forgot," he recalled, "that the little kids in the class might be considered sissies the way I was, and I got around that by having the boys play baseball or basketball before the dancing lessons started." While Gene was teaching dancing in his hometown, he was taking a pre-legal course at the university. Eventually he realized, however, that he loved dancing too much ever to give it up. He decided to be a teacher and a director of dance. That's what he is tinning out to be, too. He's teaching the world to know what dancing can be when it's freed from the bonds of convention. Gene Kelly had to become a great dancing star, though, before he could become a great dance director. It's true that Gene did create his own two dance numbers for the first show he did on Broadway, "Time Of Your Life." He also staged dances for Billy Rose's "Diamond Horseshoe Revue." That was his first chance at full-fledged dance directing. But it was as the dancer and actor of the leading role in Broadway's "Pal Joey" that Gene achieved fame, and Hollywood grabbed him off. It took six years and fourteen movies before Gene got the chance to be a director. He shared honors and responsibility for the picture, "On The Town," a movie that made previous box-office highs at Radio City Music Hall look puny. Since then Gene brought a traditiontoppling special Academy Award to "An American In Paris," co-directed the tremendously successful "Singing In The Rain," and has since performed a straight dramatic role in "The Devil Makes Three" in Europe. Kelly's working like a dog on his present movie, "Invitation To The Dance." It's a terrific chore to direct and dance in a movie. This is his first full Peter Lawford visits Jane Powell on the was completed Jane went into temporary set of "Small Town Girl. " When the film retirement to await arrival of her next baby.