Follow @iconichollywooddancers for the Iconic Hollywood Dancer moments on Instagram. Some dance numbers are choreographed. Others are engineered like acrobatics. The barn-raising scene from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) is the latter — Michael Kidd's masterpiece of controlled chaos. Tommy Rall, Russ Tamblyn, Matt Mattox, and Marc Platt threw themselves across beams, saws, and ladders in a sequence critics still call one of the most rousing dance numbers ever filmed. Kidd built the choreography from a single idea: base every move on something these backwoodsmen would actually do — swinging axes, jumping planks, wrestling for attention. No ballet lines allowed, even though half his cast came straight from it. It took three to four days to shoot. No CGI, no wires — just some of the best dancers on the planet, pushed to the edge of what the human body can do. Seventy years later, it's still the number every barn-raising dance gets measured against. [seven brides for seven brothers, michael kidd, tommy rall, russ tamblyn, matt mattox, marc platt, classic hollywood, barn raising dance]