I Get a Kick Out of You

Yesterday, I have a video of Kenneth Branagh and pals dancing in the film, Love's Labour's Lost.  I thought I'd follow that up with some more dancing, this from a PBS special.

This is unprecedented, two dance videos in a row.  (One dance video is almost unprecedented...)  I'm not a huge dance fan, and I'm most especially not a fan of dance on television.  Either dancers are too small in a wide shot, or you do a close-up and miss all the choreography.  Combine that with simply not liking dance (Why are they dancing??  If they have something to say, just say it!!  But I digress...), it's often painful for me.

But this number -- in large part, in fairness, it's a song about dance -- is what made me a fan of Karen Ziemba.  You've probably not heard of her, unless you're a Broadway geek, but she's had a successful, if not famous career on Broadway, with four Tony nominations, and particularly has done a lot with Kander & Ebb.

This number is from a PBS special in 1999, My Favorite Broadway: The Leading Ladies.  The song is from a flop musical, Kicks, written by Alan Mencken and Tom Eyen.  (Mencken more famous wrote the music for such things as Little Shop of Horrors, and the Disney films Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid.)

The song is "I Want to Be a Rockette," and it's one of the few recreations of a show number where, as you'll see, it probably is better than the original.  And helping that is Karen Ziemba who is SO wonderful and believable in this that you actually think she's telling you her lifelong dream.

It might just make you a fan of hers, too.