Michael Kidd was an American film and stage choreographer, dancer and actor, whose career spanned five decades, and staged some of the leading Broadway and film musicals of the 1940’s and 1950’s (Straus). Michael Kidd was an award winning American choreographer who over his long and productive career spanning decades revolutionized choreography on the American stage and cinema (“Michael Kidd Biography”). A talented choreographer who reached the pinnacle of his glory with the dance numbers in ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,’ he was best known for his energetic and exuberant productions that enthused the audiences and made them want to groove along (Straus). Michael Kidd, born Milton Greenwald, was born August 12, 1915, during World War …show more content…
He created the exhilarating “barn-raising’ dance for the film, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in 1954, and he is credited with bringing a fresh vigor and vitality to dance on stage and film (Straus). In the performance the brothers fought for the townswomen’s attention by scaling plans and doing flips over sawhorses. This acrobatic tour showed seamless movement and humor, and the dancers excelled in conveying the masculinity of the characters (“Michael Kidd”). The combination of athleticism and comedy epitomizes Kidd’s overall choreographic style. For other works, such as Finian’s Rainbox, Guys and Dolls, Can-Can and The Band Wagon, Kidd drew from the vocabularies of ballet, modern, social dance and acrobatics. But above all, his choreography stemmed from realistic movements and gestures (“Michael Kidd Biography”). Following the tradition of Agnes de Mille and Jerome Robbins, who developed the integrated musical, Kidd continued to create dances that helped carry the plot and flesh out the characters (Straus). He put the story first, then communicating it through dance (“Michael Kidd”). Kidd also said, “I always use real-life gestures, and most of my dancing is based on real life.” Anna Kisselgoff of the New York Times, had written that Kidd’s signature was “a characterization through energy, epitomized by a lovesick male clan