Movie Choreographers Get Their Close-Up-At Last.

Happily, author and dance historian Larry Billman has filled a major gap on the dance resources shelf. His masterly Film Choreographers and Dance Directors is a comprehensive work of the period 1893 through 1995. In 664 pages, Billman references 970 choreographers in 3,500 films. The new tome can fit right in next to such necessities as Oxford's Encyclopedia of Dance, St. James Press's International Dictionary of Modern Dance and Dance Collection Danse's Encyclopedia of Theatre Dance in Canada.

Billman, certainly the national authority on the subject, presents a detailed and fascinating account of choreographers' contributions to American film, television, video and nightclub productions (including stage and concert dance works). This reference work illuminates as it enumerates dance's influence on popular culture media.

In three parts, beginning with an overview of the history of dance on film, Billman details trends of the art of filmed dance decade by decade, including fascinating facts from the early years. Much mention is made of influential Hollywood dance pioneers, among them Ernest Belcher, the Charisse family, Theodore Kosloff, and Fanchon and Marco. All established major dance schools that developed the talents of stars for the movies, including Belcher's daughter Marge Champion, her husband, Gower, Cyd Charisse, Matt Maddox, Carmelita Maracci, Shirley Temple, Gwen Verdon and many others.

Busby Berkeley's cinematic re-visioning of dance is revealed to have been predated by Allan K. Foster's number in the first Marx Brothers film, The Cocoanuts (Paramount, 1929), which Billman calls "possibly the first overhead shot of dancers" on film. Each decade's essay ends with a selective filmography illustrating the industry's developments.

Part II--the lion's share of the book--offers choreographers' biographies and is a dense treasure trove of information. Studded with 181 photos (some published here for the first time from film outtakes), it includes biographies of dance directors both major (Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Jack Cole, Hermes Pan, Miriam Nelson, Robert Alton, LeRoy Prinz, Michael Kidd, Bobby Connolly) and minor (Arthur Appel, assisting Bobby Connolly on The Wizard of Oz; Susan Scanlan, restaging authentic 1950s dances for the Patsy Cline biopic Sweet Dreams; and disco personality Deney Terrio, one of four dancemakers for Saturday Night Fever). The biography section explores in depth the lives and influences of other great East and West Coast choreographers and dance educators, including Luigi, Michel Panaieff, Lee Theodore, Chester Hale and Patsy Swayze. The TV and Las Vegas credits in this section fill a long-empty hole in the annals of dance history. Part II ends with an appendix listing films and their choreographers.

Film Choreographers and Dance Directors ends with an index of choreographers, films, videos, operas and musicals, television and awards. Billman, founder of the Academy of Dance on Film in Los Angeles, is currently writing the companion volume to this book, Film Dancers, slated for release in mid-2001. To request this book from your favorite library or bookseller, cite Film Choreographers and Dance Directors by Larry Billman, published by McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, Box 611, Jefferson, NC 28640; 800/253-2187 or www.mcfarlandpub.com. The book is $129 postpaid; ISBN: 0-89950-868-5.

Janine Gastineau writes about the arts and is a Colorado correspondent for Dance Magazine.