{"title":"Broadway Dance","authors":"L. Gennaro","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190631093.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190631093.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"The move away from modern dance and ballet to jazz dance as the prominent movement lexicon employed on Broadway is explored. I examine Katherine Dunham and Jack Cole’s influence on a generation of choreographers and Bob Fosse’s fusion of the dominant paradigms established by de Mille and Robbins. I give special attention to Fosse’s choreographic influences, including his early exposure to nightclubs and strip joints, comic/eccentric dancer Joe Frisco, Fred Astaire, and Jack Cole. Beginning with his work in The Pajama Game (1954) under the mentorship of Robbins and examining selected works from Damn Yankees (1955) and Sweet Charity (1966), I study Fosse’s choreographic development. My close reading of the musical number “Big Spender” reveals Fosse’s dramaturgical process. I examine the number in relation to the 1960s sexual revolution; representations of the female dancing body in both commercial theater and concert venues; and in relation to de Mille’s “Postcard Girls” from her Oklahoma! dream ballet, “Laurey Makes Up Her Mind.” I also consider Fosse’s post-Sweet Charity objectification of the female body; his late career disregard for the precepts of time and place in relation to character, and his formulation of a distinctly identifiable movement lexicon—the “Fosse Style.” The chapter closes with three more influential director-choreographers: Gower Champion, with his innovative cinematic approach to stage musicals and his standard use of showbiz dance lexicons undisturbed by modernist methods; Michael Bennett, a strict proponent of Robbins methods and the inheritor of the Robbins’ mantle; and Donald McKayle, one of the only African American director-choreographers working in the late twentieth-century Broadway arena.","PeriodicalId":291961,"journal":{"name":"Making Broadway Dance","volume":"72 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133348328","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Agnes de Mille on Broadway: 1943–1945","authors":"L. Gennaro","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190631093.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190631093.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Examination of Agnes de Mille as a radical dance maker in her choreographic trifecta—Oklahoma! (1943), One Touch of Venus (1943), and Bloomer Girl (1944)—reveals an ideological shift in the production of dance on Broadway and the development of a paradigm for making dances in the musical theater. This chapter further explores de Mille’s ability to employ dance as a medium for presenting social commentary, developing character, and creating a space for female spectatorship. Her artistic project required dancers who were not merely technicians but rather actor-dancers capable of embodying character and expressing legible story through dance. Displacing the stable of Broadway chorus men and women, de Mille introduced the actor-dancer to the commercial stage, thereby developing some of the greatest dance talents of the twentieth century, including Joan McCracken, Bambi Linn, Sono Osato, and James Mitchell. Selected dances from One Touch of Venus (1943), Bloomer Girl (1944), and Carousel (1945) are analyzed.\u0000","PeriodicalId":291961,"journal":{"name":"Making Broadway Dance","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121536912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Jerome Robbins on Broadway: 1944–1951","authors":"L. Gennaro","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190631093.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190631093.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"Jerome Robbins’ surpassing of de Mille as the primary and most influential choreographer of his period is acknowledged. His training with Gluck Sandor and actors from the Group Theatre exposed him to Constantin Stanislavski’s early acting methods and his creative years at Camp Tamiment honed a brand of humor that he would use throughout his Broadway career. I consider Robbins first musical, On the Town (1944), developed from his ballet Fancy Free (1944), in the context of de Mille’s Broadway success and argue that he was at first imitative of her but ultimately found his voice and surpassed her in terms of success and output. The chapter includes analysis of selected Robbins’ choreography in what I consider the first phase of his Broadway career: On the Town (1944), Billion Dollar Baby (1945), High Button Shoes (1947), Look, Ma, I’m Dancin’! (1948), Miss Liberty (1949), Call Me Madam (1950), and The King and I (1951). I explore how Robbins developed a system for creating dance in musicals that employed the early acting techniques of Constantin Stanislavski as well as Lee Strasberg’s Method Acting. Both techniques embraced theatrical realism and informed Robbins’ creation of dances that were seamlessly embedded into musical theater librettos. His meticulous attention to the where, when, and why of his dance creations and his comic sensibility established a model for the generations of choreographers that followed him.","PeriodicalId":291961,"journal":{"name":"Making Broadway Dance","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132920085","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Taking the Reins","authors":"L. Gennaro","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190631093.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190631093.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"The genesis of the present-day director-choreographer, starting with de Mille’s role as director-choreographer on Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ill-fated Allegro (1947), is explored. How she employed dance as a narrative and metaphorical device in support of the allegorical structure of the libretto, and how her artistic vision conflicted with her collaborators is investigated. De Mille’s directorial oeuvre is considered in the context of the male-dominated world of Broadway. Robbins’ ascendance as the most influential director-choreographer of twentieth-century musical theater is examined in a close analysis of his choreography for and direction of Pajama Game (1954 [co-directed with George Abbott, co-choreographer Bob Fosse]), Peter Pan (1954), Bells Are Ringing (1956 [in which he collaborated with Bob Fosse]), Gypsy (1959), and Fiddler on the Roof (1964). West Side Story (1957) will be discussed here as an anomaly in Robbins’ musical theater career. I argue that Robbins’ interest in movement innovation in relation to his choreography for the “Jets” in West Side Story (1957) differs from his previous musical theater works. In addition, I will examine Robbins’ West Side Story collaboration with co-choreographer Peter Gennaro.","PeriodicalId":291961,"journal":{"name":"Making Broadway Dance","volume":"83 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126185025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Musical Theater Dance Training and Choreography in the 1920–1930s","authors":"L. Gennaro","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190631093.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190631093.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter provides an examination of how Broadway dancers were trained, the introduction of jazz dance to Broadway, the 1920s gradual move away from unison line dancing in favor of the individuated chorus, and how a few dance directors began to consider dance in musicals in relation to the libretto as an integrated and meaningful addition to the musical play. The common practice of Black choreographers being pushed aside while white choreographers claimed credit for their work and the essential role Black dance teachers and coaches played in training white dancers for Broadway is discussed here. Examinations of choreographic works by dance directors Buddy Bradley, Charlie Davis, Seymour Felix, Sammy Lee, Albertina Rasch, and George Balanchine establish a historical basis in preparation for the radical innovations to be discussed in subsequent chapters.","PeriodicalId":291961,"journal":{"name":"Making Broadway Dance","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115615629","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Conclusion","authors":"L. Gennaro","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190631093.003.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190631093.003.0009","url":null,"abstract":"Musical theater dance is an ever-changing, evolving dance form, egalitarian in its embrace of any and all dance genres. It is a living, transforming art developed by exceptional dance artists and requiring dramaturgical understanding; character analysis; knowledge of history, art, and design; and most importantly, an extensive knowledge of dance, both intellectual and embodied. Its ghettoization within criticism and scholarship as a throw-away dance form, undeserving of analysis—derivative, cliché-ridden, titillating and predictable, the ugly stepsister of both theater and dance—belies and ignores the historic role it has had in musicals as an expressive form equal to book, music, and lyric. The standard adage, “when you can’t speak anymore sing, when you can’t sing anymore dance” expresses its importance in musical theater as the ultimate form of heightened emotional, visceral, and intellectual expression....","PeriodicalId":291961,"journal":{"name":"Making Broadway Dance","volume":"14 1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126072808","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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