Motor City Radio Flashbacks

Choreographers have brought the latest dances to the homescreen on “Hullabaloo,” “Shindig,” and “Hollywood a Go-Go”

 

HIP AND EXCITING. The hippest, the wildest, the most exciting and most avant garde dancing being done on TV-and perhaps anywhere else today-takes place every week on the rock and roll TV shows. We are talking about “Shindig”, “Hullabaloo,” “Hollywood a Go Go,” The Lloyd Thaxton Show, and local shows in large cities like New York, and Hollywood.

It’s true of course that TV has always featured dancing on the big time shows, starting way back with the old Sid Caesar-Imogene Coca show, the Jackie Gleason Show, and the Perry Como Show, for example. Gleason opens all his shows with the June Taylor tap dancers. But the choreography on these shows is old hat compared to “Shindig” or “Hullabaloo,” almost like comparing the Busby Berkley dances in the old Dick Powell movies to the Jerome Robbins dances in “West Side Story.”

It’s doubtful if even “Shindig” producer Jack Good envisioned the effect that the “Shindig” dancers would have on TV, and TV critics, when the pioneer live TV show kicked off last September. Up until then rock and roll TV shows, like the old Dick Clark daily bandstand show, featured youngsters doing the latest dances in a casual, almost amateur-like way.

“SHINDIG” STARTED IT. “Shindig” was different from rock & roll TV shows that had preceded it in many ways. It featured a large band, smart camera work, and a lineup of a dozen attractive young girls who performed up-to-date dances behind the singers and instrumentalists on the show. This was similar to the rock and roll TV shows that Good had put on in London for both the BBC and commercial TV.

“Shindig’s” success inspired “Hullabaloo,” a slightly different show in some respects but still adhering generally to the rock and roll format. “Hullabaloo” however, went “Shindig” one better. It not only featured a lineup of dancers, but the dancers were featured themselves in one or two routines each evening. And the premiere “Hullabaloo” show spotlighted a dramatic young lady named Joey Heatherton, whose dancing that night created press comment for the show from coast-to-coast!

While “Shindig” and “Hullabaloo” have their dance fans (and they are not all youngsters-the number of young adults who watch both to see the latest dances is huge) there is another show, “Hollywood a Go Go,” that is all out on the modern dance kick. This show, choreographed by Oscar Williams is also on the rock and roll format. It brings viewers up to date on the latest steps with a young group of dancers who may be the wildest yet. “Hollywood a Go Go” is really a swinging TV discotheque scene, presided over by young TV deejay Sam Riddle.

INSPIRED BY ROBBINS. The main inspirational force behind both “Shindig” and “Hullabaloo” derives, in a sense, from Jerome Robbins, who is almost universally acknowledged as the top modern choreographer, but he wasn’t too happy with the job. of the Broadway stage (“West Side Story”) and ballet theater (“Ballets, U.S.A.”). The choreographers of “Shindig”, Andre Tayir, and “Hullabaloo”, David Winters, both danced in the stage and film versions of “West Side Story,” and both are ardent Robbins disciples.

Winters describes his choreography for “Hullabaloo” as “A combination of jazz ballet and the Watusi,” and he says that his staccato style is strongly influenced by Robbins. The 25 -year -old perfectionist auditioned 700 dancers before he selected the chorus of boys and girls currently featured on the show. He thinks all 10 are great but is particularly enthusiastic about the “standout talent” of Donna McKeckney.

BORN IN LONDON. Winters was born in London, England, and came to this country when he was 13. The sandy-haired dancer, who looks considerably younger than 25, has the likable, pugnacious features of a young James Cagney (also a chorus boy in his youth.)

After appearing in 140 TV shows as an actor and nine Broadway productions (including “Gypsy” and “West Side Story”) Winters opened a dance studio in Hollywood. One of his pupils was Ann-Margret and it was due to her recommendation that he landed his first film choreography job on the Elvis Presley picture, “Viva Las Vegas.”

Today, Winters is probably the best known choreographer in the rock and roll field. His numerous movie credits include Doris Day’s “Send Me No Flowers,”Presley’s “Get Happy” and “Tickle Me” and the highly successful teen-musicals with Annette and Frankie Avalon.

He won particular praise for his exciting dance routines on the TAMI “Teen Age Command Performance” in Electronovision. In addition to choreographing the show, writing songs, and being a recording artist, Winters appears on “Hullabaloo” himself every few weeks to perform a special dance interpretation of a best-selling tune. Winters was “Shindig’s” first choreographer, but he wasn’t too happy with the job.  “I got bored,” he says. “All they wanted was somebody to do the Pony every week. Only a kid could choreograph that show.”

WOULD DISPUTE WINTERS. Andre Tayir would undoubtedly dispute that statement, and with justification. Tayir puts in almost 50 hours a week working up routines for “Shindig’s” 10 chorus girls and visiting guests.

“As soon as one show is in the can, I have to forget the dances we did and come up with new routines for the next,” says Tayir. “It requires a great deal of work, but it’s not a chore. Everything moves at such a furious pace-no set routine to restrict you. Something new to work with every week.”

Tayir, a native of Alabama, dances solo on the show occasionally, but his “first love is still acting.” He first impressed “Shindig” producer Jack Good when he did the choreography for Good’s “Around The Beatles” special. When Winters moved over to NBC, Good had Tayir waiting in the wings.

POLISHED OR CASUAL. The principal difference between the choreography on “Hullabaloo” and “Shindig” is that the former is exciting in a polished, disciplined fashion, while the latter is equally exciting in a frantic, off-the-cuff style.

The “Shindig” dances appear to be more simple than those on “Hullabaloo.” However, this could easily be a case of artful deception. “Shindig’s” fast moving, near-chaotic pace was carefully conceived by Good, and it is possible-in fact quite probable-that he shrewdly decreed the chorus not appear too professional lest they make the young disc artist-guests look unduly awkward.

Winters rarely has this problem on “Hullabaloo,” because the show’s sizeable budget enables him to work with such show-wise stars as Sammy Davis, Paul Anka, Jack Jones, Trini Lopez, and Joey Heatherton.

THAT DANCE! Winters created a special “Hullabaloo” dance (“an extension of the Jerk”) for Joey on the first show. It was that dance-or rather Miss Heatherton’s uninhibited interpretation of it-that sparked some of the wild comments from TV critics, and viewers. The dancing on “Hullabaloo,” “Shindig,” even the Lloyd Thaxton TV Show, have now replaced the Rolling Stones as the favorite target of the TV critics.

In a way it’s like the old days when Elvis Presley showed off the Presley Twist an the Jackie Gleason and Ed Sullivan Shows. That caused nervous indignation among many TV viewers. The dancing on the swinging rock and roll TV shows is doing it again.

David Winters takes it all in his stride. He says of TV critics and their dance comments, “That’s their problem. Evil is in the eye of the beholder. Adults are doing the same dances now in Clubs. Maybe it’s just the shock of seeing it on the TV screen.”

Actually the dancers on the rock and roll TV shows are all young and attractive, and their dancing usually expresses jubilant high spirits, not the near -orgy suggested by some TV critics. A lot of viewers too think that the dances are exciting and personify today. And more than that, they’re fun to watch. END

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Information, credit, and news source: Music Business, April 3, 1965