Artists Space

Top Hat

Postponed: Film Screening
March 13, 2020, 7pm

Due to concerns about the spread of COVID-19, Artists Space and Light Industry will be rescheduling all programs related to A Film Club for Adrienne Kennedy.

Carnival of Rhythm (Jean Negulesco, 1941, 18 mins)
Top Hat (Mark Sandrich, 1935, 101 mins)

Kennedy cites choreographers Katherine Dunham and Martha Graham as "two women who inspired." Dunham transformed her medium by drawing from extensive research into the dance traditions of the African diaspora, and she made her film debut in the Warner Brothers short subject Carnival of Rhythm. The reel was conceived as a showcase for Dunham and her company, with a Brazilian-themed set performed by Dunham, Archie Savage, and Talley Beatty (Beatty would later star in the avant-garde film A Study in Choreography for Camera, directed by Dunham's former secretary Maya Deren). Carnival of Rhythm is shown this evening with Mark Sandrich's Top Hat, one of Hollywood's greatest dance films, which spotlights the toe-tapping virtuosity of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire at the height of their careers. "Gracefulness must be sought," Kennedy wrote, after seeing Astaire-Rogers collaborations at the cinema. "It's possible the sublime could exist in your daily life."

Carnival of Rhythm and Top Hat are screened at Artists Space as part of A Film Club for Adrienne Kennedy, presented in partnership with Light Industry.

A bright yellow poster for Top Hat (1935) features a man in a black tuxedo with coattails and a woman in a long white dress with a full skirt, captured in exuberant dance atop a black top hat. Orange rays radiate from around the woman, while around them are smaller illustrated vignettes of the dancing couple in various poses amidst music notes. Text at the top of the poster reads "They
Poster for Top Hat, 1935. [A bright yellow poster for Top Hat (1935) features a man in a black tuxedo with coattails and a woman in a long white dress with a full skirt, captured in exuberant dance atop a black top hat. Orange rays radiate from around the woman, while around them are smaller illustrated vignettes of the dancing couple in various poses amidst music notes. Text at the top of the poster reads "They're dancing cheek-to-cheek again!" and bold type listing the featured actors' names, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. The movie title is superimposed on the top hat in red type. Further film credits include Irving Berlin (music and lyrics), and supporting cast (Edward Everett Horton, Helen Broderick, Erick Rhodes, and Eric Blore), with direction by Mark Sandrich.]