{"id":13670,"date":"2014-07-28T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-28T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2014\/07\/28\/the-story-of-jack-cole-jazz-and-the-hindu-swing-of-the-1950s\/"},"modified":"2014-07-28T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-28T12:00:00","slug":"the-story-of-jack-cole-jazz-and-the-hindu-swing-of-the-1950s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2014\/07\/28\/the-story-of-jack-cole-jazz-and-the-hindu-swing-of-the-1950s\/","title":{"rendered":"The Story of Jack Cole, jazz and the “Hindu Swing” of the 1950s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source<\/a><\/p>\n

USA, December 18, 2011 (cinemanrityagharana.blogspot.com): HPI Note: We came across by chance today this long article on a noted dancer of the 1930-50s, Jack Cole, who had learned–from whom is uncertain–a fair amount of Bharatanatyam dance style. He then developed a form of jazz dancing using some of this style, including for movie dance choreography. This blog, whose author identifies herself only as “Cassidy, a white chick” wrote up a long article on Cole in 2011, along with clips from the old movies, some of which are absolutely fascinating. Her article begins:<\/p>\n

Ever heard of choreographer Jack Cole and “Hindu Swing?” Four weeks ago I had not either, but I think this could be one of the grooviest discoveries I’ve ever made on this blog. <\/p>\n

While researching films about India and Orientalism for my “Indian Dances in Western Films About India” post series, I came across the article “The Thousand Ways There Are to Move: Camp and Oriental Dance in the Hollywood Musicals of Jack Cole.” Clearly an interesting article just from the title, but as I read it my fascination was piqued when I read that Cole fused ethnic movements (most notably East Indian) into his choreography, started out as a Denishawn dancer, and studied with Uday Shankar! A Hollywood choreographer that studied with Uday Shankar? Tell me more! Tell me more!<\/p>\n

The article discussed in detail the number “Not Since Nineveh” that Cole choreographed for the Arabian-themed Hollywood film Kismet (1955) and it emphasized his use of clear signifiers of Indian dance. OK, I figured there would maybe be some Indian-inspired hand gestures, some pretty arm movements, some namaste hands….<\/p>\n

but nothing prepared me for THIS:<\/p>\n

“Not Since Nineveh” – Kismet (1955) -link to video <\/p>\n

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dance in Hollywood so brilliantly inspired by the geometry and precision of Bharatanatyam! I’m simply in awe. The Indian inspiration coupled with the syncopated jazz music makes for a completely new visual experience.<\/p>\n

Much more at “source” above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Source USA, December 18, 2011 (cinemanrityagharana.blogspot.com): HPI Note: We came across by chance today this long article on a noted,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13670\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}