Dancers Posters, Prints & Photographs, “A...-”
for performance arts, music, social studies and language arts classrooms, & theme decor.

Paula Abdul
Alvin Ailey
Debbie Allen

June Allyson
Carmen Amaya

Paula Abdul, Photograph

Paula Abdul
b. 6-19-1962; San Fernando, CA

Dancer and choreographer Paula Abdul is also a pop singer, record producer, actress and television personality. She was “discovered” while a cheerleader with the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team by members of the Jackson Five and hired to choreograph one of their videos.

Alvin Ailey, Photographic Print

Alvin Ailey
b. 1-5-1931; Rogers, TX
d. 12-1-1989; NYC

Alvin Ailey, Jr., a choreographer and activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York, popularized modern dance and African-American participation in 20th century concert dance. As the “Cultural Ambassador to the World” Ailey's troup did extensive international touring. Ailey's choreographic masterpiece Revelations is believed to be the best-known and most often seen modern dance performance.

FYI - Alvin Ailey and Maya Angelou sometimes performed together as “Al & Rita.” Ailey was also a student of Katherine Dunham.

Debbie Allen
b. 1-16-1950; Houston, TX

Debbie Allen, actress, dancer, choreographer, television director and producer, and a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, introduced the character of the dance teacher Lydia Grant in the movie and television program Fame. She also appeared in Broadway musicals Purlie, West Side Story (1980), Sweet Charity; television shows Good Times, A Different World, and Roots: The Next Generations, and is a judge on So You Think You Can Dance.

Allen is the younger sister of actress Phylicia Rashad, mother of dancer Vivian Nixon, and teacher of choreography to Paula Abdul.

Debbie Allen quote ~
• “You've got big dreams? You want fame? Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying ... in sweat.” - as Lydia Grant in Fame.

June Allyson, Photographic Print

June Allyson
b. 10-7-1917; The Bronx
d. 7-8-2006; California

June Allyson, best known as an actress, started out as a dancer. She had been injured in a bike accident as a child and became inspired to dance by watching Astaire and Rogers movies while recovering.

Carmen Amaya, Photographic Print

Carmen Amaya
b. 11-2-1913; Barcelona, Spain
d. 11-19-1963; California

Flamenco dancer Carmen Amaya performed from the time she was four years old, acted in several films and danced at the White House by invitations from FDR and Truman.

Fred and Adele Astaire photographic print

Fred Astaire
née Frederick Austerlitz
b. 5-10-1899; Omaha, Nebraska
d. 6-22-1987; Los Angeles, CA

The mother of Adele and Frederick Austerlitz dreamed of a brother - sister act for her talented children although little Fred wasn't so thrilled about dance lessons.

Fred Astaire, 1940, Photographic Print

Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers Photographic Print

After a career on the Broadway and London stage Adele retired from the team in 1932 and Fred went on to dance alone and with other partners.

Astaire was rated the greatest dancer of the twentieth century by Balanchine and Nureyev; and then there is the quote “Sure he was great, but don't forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did, backwards... and in high heels.”
(Frank & Ernest)

FYI - Fred Astaire starred in the 1927 Broadway production of Funny Face with his sister Adele; thirty years later he starred with Audrey Hepburn in the movie version.

Jane Avril, Jardin de Paris, 1893, Giclee Print

Jane Avril (1868-1943) and Louise “La Goulue” Weber (1866-1929) were French ‘Cancan’ dancers whose images, made famous by the paintings of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec reproduced as posters, embodied the seamer side of the European Belle Époque (Fr = Beautiful Era) period that began during the late 19th century and lasted until World War I.

“La Goulue” at the Moulin Rouge, Giclee Print

“The Galop” from Jacques Offenbach's opera bouffe “Orpheus in the Underworld” is the music most often associated with the “Cancan” which was popular in the dance halls of Paris.