Dancing! Tributes on Slate and at the National Portrait Gallery

Washington DC’s National Portrait Gallery is one of my favorite museums, and yesterday I had the great treat of visiting a special exhibit on the history of dance with photos, paintings, drawings, and video.  Josephine Baker’s famous banana dance shows that the inspiration for Miley Cyrus goes back almost 100 years.  Clips showed the Nicholas Brothers in “Stormy Weather,” John Travolta in “Saturday Night Fever” and Beyoncé singing “Single Ladies.”  One wall had QR codes linking to YouTube videos, including a “Thriller” dance at a wedding with over 17 million hits.

And Slate has a nice tribute to dancing in the movies, featuring John Travolta (again) in “Pulp Fiction,” Elvis Presley in “Jailhouse Rock,” and Channing Tatum and his wife Jenna Dewan in “Step Up.”