Open University of Wellfleet

Marc Strauss

Mondays, 6-7:30 PM

Jan. 13, 20, 27, Feb. 3, 10

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Broadway and Hollywood musical lovers are more than familiar with Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Michael Kidd, and Rob Marshall, among others, but few know the name of dancer and choreographer Jack Cole (1911 – 1974). Often referred to as the Father of Theatrical Jazz Dance, Cole predated and in fact influenced those choreographers as well as the succeeding generations of stage and screen choreographers. A unique mélange of jazz, ballet, tap, theater dance, Indian, and Afro-Caribbean styles make up the choreography of Jack Cole, a true polymath who is still underappreciated and under-represented in the dance history books. This class will focus on the qualities of that creativity as performed by four major dance muses for Cole—Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Mitzi Gaynor, and Marilyn Monroe (and others)—through DVD and YouTube showings of routines throughout Cole’s twenty-odd film output from the 1940s through the 1960s. With Marc Strauss as your curator and guide, come experience the dances of the little known but highly influential Jack Cole and the famous women who performed his work.

$60 REGISTER