As sensitive to the eye of the camera as to the lines of the human body, the choreography of Hermes Pan both changed dance for camera and manipulated the ways in which Americans watch dance. In his new book, Hermes Pan: The Man Who Danced with Fred Astaire, John Franceschina captures the essence of a man dedicated to the art of making dances for Hollywood. Unlike some of Franceschina's previous roles as editor or translator, this recent publication allows him greater latitude to explore his own authorial voice. Franceschina examines the choreographic prodigy alongside American history and technology. He also demonstrates his extensive knowledge in disparate fields by offering detailed accounts of the artistic and culturally rich world in which Pan lived. Hermes Pan traverses both the slight and the scholarly; it is an instructive text laced with juicy entertainment gossip.

While Franceschina's earlier publications have demonstrated the author's expertise in the fields of theater and music,Footnote ¹Hermes Pan proves that he also has an excellent grasp of both dance and dance for camera. He uses technical dance and camera terminologies and then supports these terms with encyclopedic descriptions. Additionally he fills the text with dense historical, technological, and musical theater facts, so that even those well versed in these areas are likely to finish the book with a substantial bulk of new knowledge. Franceschina's greatest contribution, however, is the blueprint he draws for scholars interested in American musical theater and Hollywood cinema's AfricanistFootnote ² presence.

Icons such as Fred Astaire have overshadowed Hermes Pan's legacy within the annals of dance and musical theater, in much the same way Broadway and Hollywood have invisibilized Pan's labors by omitting his name from the credits. It is for this reason that dance enthusiasts will be surprised to read that Pan assisted LeRoy Prinz in choreographing the all-black musical Lucky Day (36–7), was Fred Astaire's right-hand man in countless Hollywood films—Flying Down to Rio, Top Hat, and Roberta to name just a few, and was responsible for Bob Fosse's big break (187).Footnote ³ Franceschina attributes some of this to Pan's personal desire to stay out of the spotlight: “... Hermes resembled more the anonymous artisan or monk from the Middle Ages” (5). However, his career and contributions have been no less significant than those of other major names. Franceschina's biography shines light on Pan's extraordinary ordinary life and his prolific career as dancer, choreographer, and diplomat.

While this book lacks the allure of drugs, sex, and starvation that so many dance memoirs and biographies rely upon, Franceschina's book is no less addictive. Similar to the way that Christian Science and maternal ties became both driving and obsessive forces in Allegra Kent's dance career and personal life (Reference Kent1997), Catholicism and familial obligations simultaneously drove and impeded Pan's personal life and career. These demons kept Pan a closeted homosexual, but also kept him choreographically productive and humble. Pan choreographed eighty-nine films for Hollywood and still struggled to accept public accolades, including an Oscar and an Emmy for best choreography. Despite Pan's success, he often experienced a spiritual emptiness and thus offered up each of his dances in prayer as “spiritual contribution[s]” (130). Feelings of gluttony and shame consumed Pan, and he consequently lived a life of abstinence and secrecy.

Hermes Pan diverges from typical dance biographies that are full of sexual escapades and non-closeted homosexuality. The only significant mention of Pan's romantic life regards his secret lover, Gino Malerba, a dancer he met while working in Italy. Yet despite the silenced nature of Pan's romantic life, he had a wealth of deep friendships. Franceschina devotes the majority of his text to these relationships. Letters dispersed throughout the text from American figures like Cole Porter, and anecdotes that describe personal favors the Shah of Iran would ask of Pan, show the choreographer's impact nationally and internationally. Three relationships that will be of particular interest to dance scholars are those he shared with Diego Rivera, Fred Astaire, and his black mammy's son, Sam Clark.

Hermes Pan became Rivera's model for exploring new techniques for painting motion on canvas. While this section on Rivera is heavily anecdotal, Franceschina articulates the impact that Pan's dancing body had on Rivera's work and provides useful insight for scholars interested in the link between dance and visual art. When the two artists met, they not only expressed themselves through vastly different artistic mediums, but had two diametrically opposed worldviews: the devout American Catholic dancer dedicated to spiritual ideals and God would have a transformative impact on the Marxist, materialist, and atheist Mexican painter (134). For two weeks, Pan posed and pirouetted for Rivera in the morning and discussed philosophy and the senses over lunch in the afternoon. At the end of this two-week stint at Rivera's studio in San Angel, Mexico, the artist presented Pan with a five-by-four-foot portrait that captured everything from the motion present in a dancer's eye as he prepares to spot, to the tension present in various leg muscles as a dancer initiates a pirouette. According to Franceschina, Pan also changed Rivera's worldview: “Shortly before [Rivera] died, [Rivera] painted over the words ‘Dio Non Existi’ (God does not exist) on the mural he created for the Reformer Hotel in Mexico City” (136). Thus Pan influenced the way that Rivera saw the world in two senses: their relationship changed the way Rivera saw man in relation to the earth and to God; Pan opened Rivera up to new modes of perceiving movement on canvas and in the world. While dance scholars might find Franceschina's use of words in this section a bit robotic, the author demonstrates an art-historical thoroughness in his descriptions.

Franceschina describes all of Pan's work in immense and meticulous detail, but overall his language lacks a certain kinesis, presenting a challenge for scholars working within dance studies. I am left with a vague sense of what Pan's choreography actually looked like, except that he and Fred Astaire were each other's mirrors in the studio and that “black” culture heavily influenced Pan. I posit three theories for why conjuring up an image of Pan's style might be difficult. First his own versatility as a choreographer: Pan choreographed everything from top hat and tails tap routines for The Barkley's of Broadway to more “ethnic dancing” numbers alongside Jack Cole for Sun Valley Serenade (112). Second, Pan choreographed at a time when the camera trumped the human body, and choreographing flesh was often secondary to choreographing the camera. Third, Franceschina assumes that his audience can recall the specifics of Astaire's dancing, and that “black” dance has a discernible rhythm and style. With that being said, Hermes Pan provides tremendous insight into the choreographer's breadth of creativity, the deep and idiosyncratic relationship he shared with both Astaire and the camera, and Pan's profound appreciation of black culture.

Hermes Pan and Fred Astaire shared perfectionism, quirkiness, and an admirable work ethic, both on set and off. The two dancers met after Pan choreographed a trial Carioca for dance director Dave Gould, who in turn hired Pan to be Astaire's dance assistant on the film, Flying Down to Rio. Franceschina's detailed account of their first meeting on RKO's Stage Eight epitomizes the creative, spontaneous, and collaborative nature of their relationship. Within minutes of meeting one another, Astaire gave Pan a private show, but stopped abruptly in the middle of the routine asking Pan's honest opinion of his work. Pan recalled: “This is the kind of dancing I've always dreamed of. This is my idea of a dancer.” (44). But Astaire was actually out of ideas and desperate for Pan's help. Pan soon found himself teaching tap breaks to Astaire, who appreciated how naturally Pan's style fit his own. This first meeting in 1933 laid the groundwork for a fifty-four-year partnership.

The two men worked as a tag team on dozens of films, co-choreographing bodies and camera angles. If they were working on a duet for Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Pan would partner as Ginger while working with Fred and as Fred while working with Ginger. He was Fred's collaborator and surrogate—his choreographic inspiration and biggest fan. While Astaire frequently learned new tap steps from Pan, Pan learned a lot about staging dance for film while working with Astaire. Franceschina quotes Pan: “We'd rehearse in front of those big mirrors, and those were our cameras. If you travel across the screen you get a much better effect of movement than if you come straight down the middle.... We designed things so that if you had a step that came from the back and you wanted it to [look like it was] coming forward, instead of coming straight down we'd do it diagonally ...” (53). In the filming of The Gay Divorcee, for example, Hermes was in charge of “communicating how Fred and he wanted the dances photographed” (54). Together, over time, Pan and Astaire offered the Hollywood musical an alternate aesthetic, broadening American viewership to include not only the Busby Berkeley technique of large-ensemble visual spectacle, but also smaller-scale, full-bodied shots of rhythmic finesse. Franceschina quotes Pan: “For close-ups, the beautiful dancer gets the call, but beauty without rhythm can spoil a routine more quickly than one bad apple spoils the barrel” (66). Pan's aesthetic was a combination of what he learned on set with Astaire and behind the scenes with his boyhood friend Sam Clark and the black subcultures of Memphis and Manhattan.

While Franceschina tackles multiple histories and stories in immense detail, he leaves one thread of Pan's life open for interpretation and scholarly research. From the first chapter to the very last, Franceschina includes Pan's close ties to the African American communities of Tennessee and New York. One of Pan's closest friends growing up was his black mammy's son, Sam Clark, who taught Pan the foot-slapping and shuffling that his friends and family were doing in the Nashville ghetto of Black Bottom (14). It was this informal education that developed Pan's passion for “broken rhythms and afterbeats” (18). When the family moved to Manhattan, Sam would go to the all-black Cotton Club, learn dances like the Charleston and Black Bottom, and then bring them back to the Pan household for impromptu lessons (22). These moves that Pan absorbed through Sam later surfaced in movies such as Finian's Rainbow, Swing Time, and Kiss Me Kate. The story Franceschina tells makes a strong statement about where and from what sources American musical theater derives its roots, yet the author shies away from making bold claims about the Africanist presence in American entertainment. That is, Franceschina transcribes the stories as they have been relayed to him and written, but leaves dance theorists interested in critical race studies salivating for more. Hermes Pan is a rich addition to the dance history library and a terrific springboard for scholars interested in the relationship between dance and racial representation.