Week 1 Reading - Rumsey PDF

Martincich, Dustyn, , Phoebe Rumsey, , Benae Beamon, , Bud Coleman, , Tome’ Cousin, , Joanna Dee Das, , Ramón Flowers, , Mijiang “M-Jay” He, , Michael D. Jablonski, , Nathan James, , Ariel Nereson, , Adrienne Gibbons Oehlers, , Amanda Olmstead, , Kim Varhola, , Alexandra Joye Warren, , and Kevin Winkler., Martincich, Dustyn , and Phoebe Rumsey , ed. Dance in Musical Theatre: A History of the Body in Movement. London: Methuen Drama, 2023. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 5 Jan. 2024.. Accessed from: www.bloomsburycollections.com Accessed on: Fri Jan 05 2024 12:59:27 Eastern Standard Time Copyright © Phoebe Rumsey. All rights reserved. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without prior permission in writing from the publishers. 1 Reading Dance: The Body in Motion Onstage PHOEBE RUMSEY Lights rise on the silhouettes of bodies of all sizes and postures. The thumping of drums inspires a toe-tapping beat, and each person—facing a different focus point, standing or seated, legs crossed, open, or askew—digs their heel into the ﬂoor in their own way. Boots thump, running shoes stomp, and the music is loud. The triumphant folk-meets-pop beat is felt in the core. In the individuality of the stomp, the choreography reveals how each character embodies their presence in this tiny town at the far eastern edge of Canada, nicknamed “the Rock.” A series of micro-monologues are interspersed throughout the song. The movement, though minimal, is consistent in its time-keeping pulse. Shoulders roll and heels wedge into the ﬂoor with increasing emphasis as the music builds toward the chorus of the song. As the lyrics repeatedly claim “I am an Islander,” the townsfolk strike the same pedestrian pose: a mid-level crouch, in a parallel position, one foot in front of the other. In unison, they engage in two stamps with the right foot, then replace the right with the left, step back with the left and forward with the right, and clap. In this moment, at the height of the song’s chorus in the opening song of the 2017 musical Come from Away, multiple inﬂuences and styles are visible: a touch of body percussion, a nod toward a jig in the footwork, and a borrowing of rhythmic stomp-heel drops from tap dance. The same sequence is repeated each time the chorus of the song comes around, with growing bodily commitment and insistence in each iteration. The moment is thrilling and welcoming in its homespun grittiness and heart wrenching in its earnestness and its physicalizing of inner strength. Why does this assemblage of commonplace steps work on so many physical and emotional levels? This choreography, created by Kelly Devine, works in part because an assortment of bodies perform the steps together yet decidedly marked by their own physicality, clear character objectives, full focus, and commitment to their physical engagement with the piece. In the intersection between unison movement and the individual identities and postures that are set forth in the opening of the musical, the roots, beliefs, styles, and passion of a community living in the far-off town of Gander, Newfoundland, come to life. The music and lyrics signify an unbridled pride in place and bring the six-minute opening to a peak. The dozen or so counts of choreography are aesthetically engaging because they mesh together. The embodied resonance of the group launches the performative conceit of the show: kindhearted, no-nonsense, individual goodwill at a moment of global crisis. Come from Away, the Tony Award–winning musical with lyrics, music, and book written by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, tells the story of a place and people at a very dark moment in history: the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. A light in the darkness is focused on 15 Image 1.1 “Welcome to the Rock,” Come from Away (2017). Photo by Matthew Murphy. Gander as the small community had no choice but to welcome approximately seven thousand people to their tiny town when planes had to be grounded due to the closure of North American air space. “Welcome to the Rock,” the opening song of the musical, is a tour de force that introduces the characters, the place, and then the “event.” The opening offers up a snapshot of the moment when this town, and more broadly the world, tuned into the television or radio and heard of the attacks. Much of the affect is achieved through movement and body language. Devine’s choreographic choices pointedly demonstrate how movement can be tied to place, character, and event. The physical and musical dynamics express the sublime moment of realization: the clipped beats transform into an airy soaring melody of long, lifted tones and Devine shifts the hard-hitting movement to more sustained stances; the performers rock slowly forward and back toward the audience in unison. They then point to the ground, indicating the presentness of time and place not to be forgotten. The song splinters into many rhythmic layers of voice and music. Subtle choreographic choices such as the slow shifting of focus from midline to high, along with collective breathing with shoulders rising and falling, illustrate the endurance and hope in the community and, more broadly, connect the audience to that visceral experience of the body in moments of crisis. Musicians take the stage, their own physicality adding to the embodied impact. Performers gesture skyward with open hands that abruptly clamp into ﬁsts as heels drop into the ﬂoor, resuming the upbeat tempo. The intense commitment to shared physicalized expressions— whether that be precise choreography or individual body language—sustains the possibility for the audience to intuitively connect to the moment. The embodied tenacity in the vocabulary, composition, and visualization of Come from Away, along with the dynamic charge in the simple steps, conveys the power of movement in performance. There is no highly choreographed Broadway-style jazz dance in this musical; the movement signature uniquely suits the group of townspeople. There are no kicklines or 16 Dance in Musical Theatre virtuosic feats of athleticism, and yet the musical moves. Whether it is called dance, physical theatre, movement, or body language, the “fervent use of the body” as described by dance scholar Susan Leigh Foster allows for a unique understanding of our humanity and physical potential distinct from the analysis of the written word or historical artifact.1 The reading of dance and movement, which Foster deﬁnes as “the active and interactive interpretation of dance as a system of meaning,” requires a variety of observational tools.2 This chapter highlights an assortment of approaches to reading dance in an effort to champion the analysis of dance and movement onstage as a key point of meaning-making often overlooked in musical theatre analysis. Musical theatre dance, as described by Liza Gennarro, is a “unique, distinct genre in the history of American dance,” and this chapter aims to put forth the tools to recognize, analyze, and ultimately uphold the genre for all it brings to musical theatre and to dance more broadly.3 A Space for Dance In choreography of any kind—whether movements are rooted in the everyday such as that put forward by Devine in Come from Away, or, the ballet-based jazz of Jerome Robbins; the sexy, nuanced gestures of Bob Fosse; the urban angles and articulation of Andy Blankenbuehler; the sophisticated patterns of Susan Stroman; the contemporary moves of Camille A. Brown; or the street-style hooﬁn’ of Savion Glover—the body in motion opens up the possibility for a visceral connection to an audience. Expressly, by connecting to the audience on an embodied level, the body makes another layer of meaning available. In 2009, David Savran argued that musical theatre can be a “barometer of cultural and social politics” and a means to comprehend one’s place in the world.4 This mode of thinking has opened the door for musical theatre to be investigated as much more than an entertainment offering. The multifarious uses, roles, devices, tools, and styles of moving bodies onstage are integral pieces of the broader and ongoing desire to understand ourselves in the world. If we are to continue the campaign to bring musical theatre into a critical discourse about social culture, we must galvanize conversations about the body onstage, forge frames of empathy, and understand the body’s function outside of the materiality of words and musical scores. Pointedly, few reviews and critiques of musical theatre describe, evaluate, or interrogate the moving body at any length: there is simply not often the time or space to go into that depth of investigation. As a result, the liminal, or ﬂeeting, quality of movement is often mentioned only brieﬂy, if at all. Critics with experience in dance are more apt to examine the style or quality of moves but still tend to emphasize the book, score, singing, and acting. The goal of this book, as outlined in the introduction, is to model how to read the body in motion onstage and to empower students, scholars, and theatregoers to take on that challenge. 1 Susan Leigh Foster, Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American Dance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), xv. 2 Susan Leigh Foster, 1986, xv. 3 Liza Gennaro, Making Broadway Dance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 4. 4 David Savran, “The Do-Re-Mi of Musical Theatre Historiography,” in Changing the Subject: Marvin Carlson and Theatre Studies, 1959–2009, ed. Joseph Roach (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009), 230. Reading Dance: The Body in Motion Onstage 17 Furthermore, the aim is to demystify dance and to offer ideas on how discussions on dance in musical theatre can be better incorporated into critiques, classrooms, and studios. This chapter suggests numerous means to articulate dance effectively, to demonstrate how it entwines with the other elements in performance, and to explore those intersections. By turning to the body as a critical mode of analysis, and using thick description in connection with the investigation of who is moving and why, one is able to open up a conversation about musical theatre that comes from a place of familiarity and yet recognizes difference. We all have a body, but explicitly not that body onstage; we all move, but not in that way in front of us. The body is innately familiar, elemental, and intuitive, and yet, by virtue of the distance and unknowability of another’s body, the study of bodies in motion can be mystifying. While the tools, language, vocabulary, and observational skills of describing movement may not be readily available to all, there is the potential of shared humanity and a common awareness of how bodies move. In fact, we are perhaps more connected to bodies in motion than we are to the complex musical language of the score or the structure of the libretto. What follows are numerous approaches to investigating dance, as well as suggestions toward starting conversations and formulating ideas around and about dance, movement, and choreography. In essence, as the opening description of Come from Away illustrates, a movement-based narrative has the potential to engage, challenge, and inspire readers to think more deeply about performance. Where Do I Look? When viewing performance, there is a lot to take in at once. Furthermore, choreography in a musical is much more ephemeral than the score, book, or libretto. While some shows can be watched again on streaming sites, or through excerpts from the Tony Awards on YouTube (where the opening song from Come from Away is available for viewing), musicals are rarely available in their entirety on most platforms. Excellent archives such as the Theatre on Film on Tape (TOFT) at the New York Public Library do exist but are often limited in terms of location for those not in New York City. The ephemerality of dance and the difﬁculty of re-viewing what was witnessed may result in students, critics, and musical theatre enthusiasts backing away from describing dance. It can be much more challenging to rely on memory than on material evidence such as a score or a script. Keen observation of dance in the moment becomes key. And, with that, fundamental challenges emerge. Common questions arise when one is attempting to describe movement, dance, or choreography: Where do I look? What should I watch out for? How do I interpret what is happening onstage? How do I read dance? To start, deﬁning what it is to read the meaning of dance—to use Foster’s phrasing—can be helpful toward organizing a methodology for critically analyzing dance.5 First, there is the question of what a body can do and what it is 5 Dance studies and performance studies offer a plethora of ideas and theories regarding the body as an object of study. This chapter engages with several, though limits of space preclude extensive study. Several resources to look to that explore philosophies of the body in motion include: Susanne Franco and Marina Nordera, eds., Dance Discourses: Keywords in Dance Research (London: Routledge, 2007); 18 Dance in Musical Theatre capable of. The answer will naturally be different from performer to performer, as well as from audience member to audience member. Despite how much uniformity is valued in dance, a body will never move exactly the same each time, or exactly like another. This understanding can offer a sense of freedom for the observer. Likewise, this recognition of difference may help ease the anxiety felt by many in attempting to assess something they may not be able to do themselves or at least not at the highly accomplished level put forth by performers onstage in a musical. Considering the body as a shifting and transforming object of investigation that happens in the liminal moment of performance helps to pinpoint what the dancing body is doing onstage beyond choreographed steps. Furthermore, recognizing how the body is coded (socially and/or politically) given the speciﬁc contexts of both the piece and the production fosters critical insight. For the spectator, the act of sitting in a theatre immersed in all the conventions, thrills, and theatricality of musical theatre can make for a variety of challenges for critical focus. The rapture of an all-singing, all-dancing form with technological feats such as a rotating stage, lifts, onstage musicians, digital enhancements, and projections can distract from maintaining a singular focus on movement. How does one tune in to the dance, the movement, the bodies in this mélange of stimulus, and the collaborative and often integrated nature of the genre? Again, at its most basic—where is one supposed to look? Pointedly, in working with the director to integrate movement into the songs and narrative, the choreographer is trying to communicate something and has the expectation or hope that spectators will understand their vision, which is translated and augmented by the work of the performers.6 As such, it is the choreographer’s task to bring spectators along, as opposed to it being the spectators’ task to ﬁgure out what the choreographer wants them to see. In this manner, then, allowing oneself the freedom to watch, interrogate, and pick apart movement that seems interesting can alleviate the pressure to guess the choreographic intention. Pay attention to what your eye is drawn to. Perhaps it is the larger patterns being made onstage by the ensemble, or perhaps it is that one person who is slightly ahead or behind, taller or shorter, similar to one’s self or different. The potential entry points are many. A student recently explained that they prefer analyzing movement based on the kind of shoes the performer is wearing. This point of focus offers an intriguing line of inquiry. Even if the movement/dance technique is unfamiliar, the shoe style worn by a performer can help us connect to the dance style. For example, if performers are wearing high-heeled pumps or character shoes, the situation may be more formal, or as part of a show in the narrative. If the dancers are in bare feet, then the dance style may be more contemporary and grounded, or perhaps the setting is outdoors. Furthermore, the choice of shoes affects the movement quality and the holding and Randy Martin, Critical Moves: Dance Studies in Theory and Politics (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998); André Lepecki, Exhausting Dance: Performance and the Politics of Movement (New York: Routledge, 2006); and Ann Cooper Albright, Choreographing Difference: The Body and Identity in Contemporary Dance (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1997). 6 One thing to consider, particularly in regard to the presentation of communities onstage, is that areas of the movement or stage blocking can variously be attributed to the director, the choreographer, and the two in collaboration. Furthermore, the performers are often encouraged to offer personal dance styles or movement qualities, particularly if they have training in a style the choreographer does not. Reading Dance: The Body in Motion Onstage 19 placement of weight. An examination of the musical Kinky Boots (2013) from the perspective of footwear might fruitfully connect movement and identity. Perhaps looking at the use of ballet shoes versus miner’s work boots in Billy Elliot (2008) would make for a productive entry into movement analysis. Another student mentioned that they were fascinated by dances they had seen their parents do. Here is another potential entry point: identifying social dances in a musical and examining when and where social dance happens can reveal much about the community being explored onstage. Moreover, looking for dances that one’s parents or grandparents might have done is a good way to identify social dances from a previous era and begin to consider their historical signiﬁcance. Discovering the meaning behind those social dances, and looking at how they are weighted and executed,7 can unveil an entire branch of investigation that is built on the social and cultural meaning of dance.8 For example, the loose style of the Charleston, along with the unconstrained clothing associated with it, can denote female empowerment and a break away from strict postures and form-ﬁtting clothing. Additionally, movement often works in tandem with other visual factors to signal and enhance meaning within the narrative. As such, looking at how lights change within the dance or how set pieces move alongside or within the choreography can be helpful in understanding the shifting of emotions, ideas, or time frames. On the whole, anyone who seeks to engage with dance in musical theatre should ﬁnd an anchor point that interests them to connect to the broader structure of the musical. Dance intersects with all aspects of the musical (the libretto, the music, the design, the acting, and so on); it does not exist on its own. Identifying the movement’s connection to the other elements can be a good introduction toward uncovering a more layered interpretation of visual storytelling. Moving forward, this chapter offers a compilation of approaches to reading dance that are accessible and supported by examples from familiar musicals, as well as methods from other practitioners and scholars. The ultimate goal is to give the reader a myriad of options to draw from. Solos and Ensembles Musicals commonly incorporate both solo and ensemble dancing. The question of how many people are onstage can be a straightforward place to begin engaging with dance in musical theatre.9 While solo choreography is rarer (Cassie in A Chorus Line or Louise on the beach in Carousel , for example), the use of one person as a building block 7 Weighted is a movement term. A dance that is described as being weighted can mean one with much bend in the knee joints and with body weight equal across all four corners of the foot. One’s weight can be forward or back if they are mostly on their toes and ball of the foot. Conversely, one’s weight can be back, meaning with a heavy heel; in that case they might walk heel toe, rather than toe heel. 8 Julie Malnig’s edited collection Ballroom, Boogie, Shimmy Sham, Shake: A Social and Popular Dance Reader (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009) is an excellent source on context and intertext of social dances and identifying and analyzing social dance from a variety of eras. 9 For more on formation and ensembles, see Adrienne Gibbons Oehlers’s chapter in this volume. 20 Dance in Musical Theatre toward a full ensemble dance is a common and effective way to build excitement, tension, or dramatic impact. Dance in this manner works in tandem with the voice as the transition to ensemble is accompanied by the addition of voices, harmonies, multiple solo lines, and rousing choruses, facilitating an emotional build. Examples here include “Tonight” in West Side Story (1961) and “One More Day” in Les Misérables (1985), where an increase in the number of voices and bodies onstage helps launch the piece to its climax. A unique movement build can be found in the 2019 revival of Kiss Me, Kate (1948), speciﬁcally in Cole Porter’s dynamic piece “Too Darn Hot.” Choreographer Warren Carlyle begins with one tap dancer, who is joined by two others, who are by the end joined by the entire ensemble cast, executing exuberant tuck jumps in unison. Observations of who is moving and who is not can also open up a conversation about character and the question of why some characters “get” to dance in the narrative. A movement analysis of this sort can reveal character relationships and dynamics. For example, if the characters from an older generation are watching the younger generation dance, such as in the song “Shipoopi” in The Music Man (1957) or in the Heart Mountain Dance in Allegiance (2016), knowledge can be gained about the relationship between generations. Familial tensions might be revealed by reactions to the quality of movements each generation presents as seen in the use of social dance. Investigating that conﬂict could open the door to a broader sociopolitical discussion and, ultimately, a greater understanding of the musical itself. Unison and Non-Unison Movement The distinction between unison and non-unison movements can be a valuable point of focus for those seeking to read what is happening onstage. Have groups of dancers been established? Does one group move differently than another group? In the case of West Side Story, for example, the Sharks and Jets have different styles of moving, and those divergent qualities help establish the identity politics between the groups. In fact, West Side Story choreographer Jerome Robbins gives each group a dance number of their own in the musical to reinforce their differences via movement. “Cool” is a song and dance moment that ﬁts the Jets’ low-to-the-ground and percussive jazz style, and “America” combines punctuated accents with a variety of Latin inﬂuences for the Sharks. Comparing and contrasting the two numbers reveals character motives, cultural assumptions, and even the creative team’s broader intentions in the musical. If the performers are not in unison, an examination of the differences in the ways they dance can reveal dramatic intention. Often choreographers use canons to emphasize movements by way of repetition. Similar to a song sung in the round (“Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” for example), canon work can create a sort of kaleidoscopic effect in the dance and give multiple layers of movement for interpretation. This effect is easily achieved by having dancers start a movement phrase a couple of counts after one another. On the Town (1944) begins with three sailors on shore leave entering one after another doing the same jumping kicks and turns. This choice emphasizes their similarities as members of the Navy, yet it also allows them to add their own character intonations and unique physicality as well as physicalize certain themes and variations in the score. Reading Dance: The Body in Motion Onstage 21 Revivals and Ghosts of Past Choreographers Broadway commonly revives musicals. In fact, the revival concept has become so popular that a separate Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical was added in 1994.10 This practice leads to fascinating effects as the time and place when a show is revived directly impacts the subtext and undercurrent of the show, no matter when it is set. Studying the context and appearance of revivals can often lead into a discussion of the ongoing developments in society in contrast with the past. Not only do revivals typically have different dancing from the original, but dance is often the only malleable area of a revival, as librettos and scores are commonly ﬁxed.11 The choreography in revivals can be the most exciting and anticipated change. Liza Gennaro points out how investigating different choreographers’ interpretations of musical theatre revivals can lead to a deeper understanding of what movement can do, as well as provide insight into the challenges new choreographers face when working with a show whose original production was quite successful. Gennaro explains, “the ghosts of choreographers past loom heavily just about everywhere: in stage directions, dance arrangements, sound recordings, and cultural memory.”12 Take for example Trevor Nunn and Susan Stroman’s 1998 revival of the 1943 musical Oklahoma! Though choreographer Stroman speciﬁcally requested permission to translate the dances in her own style, the stylings and gestures of original choreographer Agnes de Mille haunt the production by way of contrast, particularly because the 1955 ﬁlm (choreographed by de Mille) is so broadly known. Gennaro further emphasizes the potential that Broadway dance, speciﬁcally jazz dance, has to express emotion. Though there are many iterations of shows, she writes, dance can be “a rich declaration of human experience that remains current as it morphs through the decades, maintaining a profound and consistent presence in Broadway dance.”13 This brings up the question of stylistic shifts. In Hamilton (2015), for example, choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler uses a variety of styles, each suited to a speciﬁc moment of dramatic intrigue.14 When Thomas Jefferson enters in act 2 with “What’d I miss?” he has a light swing- dance sensibility that helps mark a transition out of the high-stakes military battles of the ﬁrst act and into the formation of government of the second. While, as Gennaro warns, “the juxtaposition between styles is jarring,” an awareness of shifts in movement and music styles and how those transitions are handled can be helpful in the analysis of choreography in a musical.15 10 The Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play or Musical was introduced in 1977, but musicals were separated out into their own award in 1994. For more on revivals, see Joanna Dee Das’s chapter in this volume. 11 Changes in orchestration or language are sometimes part of the negotiations involved in securing the rights. In rare cases (West Side Story is a notable example), the choreography is protected under the copyright and licensing of the musical. Special permission is required to undertake signiﬁcant choreographic changes in such cases. 12 Liza Gennaro, “Dance in Musical Theatre Revival and Adaptation: Engaging with the Past while Creating Dances for the Present,” in The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical, ed. Jessica Sternfeld and Elizabeth L. Wollman (London: Routledge, 2020), 246. 13 Gennaro, Making Broadway Dance, 12–13. 14 See Phoebe Rumsey, “The Convergence of Dance Styles in the Musical Hamilton: An American Musical,” in Sternfeld and Wollman, The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical, 255–62. 15 Gennaro, Making Broadway Dance, 19. In the case of Hamilton, the shift also helps show that Jefferson is a new character, distinguishing him from the ﬁrst act’s Lafayette, who is played by the same actor (Daveed Diggs). 22 Dance in Musical Theatre Conventions and Stereotypes Another critical avenue towards reading dance involves spectators’ expectations of what dance should do onstage. How can a spectator recognize their bias or preconceived ideas about bodies moving? Clichés, stereotypes, and conventions swirl around the form, some problematically and others of beneﬁt. Markedly, many choices made onstage by choreographers and movement coaches are picked up on in the media. For instance, a whimsical demonstration of “jazz hands” has become the signature move of the musical theatre. In fact, as this book will discuss, the bold gesture of splayed, often-white-gloved hands shaking in time has a drawn-out and racially inﬂected history extending back to minstrel shows. Bob Fosse used splayed hands in much of his work, most substantially in the opening of Pippin (1972), and more recently the choreographer of A Strange Loop (2019), Raja Feather Kelly, hints at minstrelsy by way of “jazz hands.”16 Recognizing and attending to the historical roots of familiar moves in musical theatre, many of which are fraught within structures of white supremacy, helps us contextualize the genre. Exploring why moves become conventions and what that means can help one navigate the challenging task of describing, interpreting, and analyzing the body in motion onstage. As this brief reading of jazz hands has shown, a focus on the inherent meaning and history behind a move can nuance an interrogation of choreographic choices. While some movements are more socially and politically charged than others, all movements, like words, have cultural symbolism and cultural history. Dance in musical theatre moves far beyond production numbers inserted for mere entertainment’s sake. Rather, to return to Savran’s language, musical theatre is a barometer of the time, and previously expected movement conventions such as male-female partnering fall away to new ways of showing community, such as that outlined for Come from Away or seen in Pippin, Kinky Boots, Billy Elliot, or Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (2021), to name only a few. Methods and Meaning-Making Beyond these broadly accessible approaches to reading dance, practitioners and scholars offer numerous options for looking at and reading dance that range from typologies of movement quality to speciﬁc analytical tools. Austro-Hungarian dance theorist Rudolph Laban (1879–1958), for example, put forth a complex movement notation system that allows for a categorizing of the quality or ﬂow of the movement, even when the speciﬁc names of steps are not known by or available to the observer. The study of Laban’s work and Labanotation (his method of notating dance and dance qualities) is vast and beyond the scope of this chapter, but his analytical framework, which examines the space, time, weight, and actions of the dancer, offers some practical vocabulary for describing dance.17 Laban proposes criteria to use as a lens to determine what a dancer is doing onstage. He asks the 16 For more on Bob Fosse’s development of his style and inﬂuences see Kevin Winkler’s Big Deal: Bob Fosse and Dance in the American Musical (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). 17 An accessible explanation of the Laban framework of space, time, weight, and action can be found in Theresa Mitchell’s Movement: From Person to Actor to Character (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1998), 65–72. Reading Dance: The Body in Motion Onstage 23 observer to determine whether the performer’s focus in the space is direct or indirect, whether the timing of the movements is quick or sustained, and whether the weight is strong or light. These touchstones allow the observer to begin to understand the concept the choreographer is trying to put forth, using terms that can connect to everyday actions. In Laban’s fourth area of investigation, and perhaps the most accessible, he describes simple actions that can identify everyday movement and require no speciﬁc training to identify: dab, wring, punch, glide, press, slash, ﬂoat, and ﬂick. Looking for these eight qualities across the spectrum of movement onstage can help observers ground a description of the dance, particularly if emotional qualities are assigned to the movements. For example, in the stomping action of the opening of Come from Away, the movement quality could be described as directly focused using strong weight, with a quick reaction in the foot to the fast music and a punchiness that underpins the resilient attitude of the townspeople. This is only one example of how Laban analysis can allow for the describing of qualities that can lead to more formal unpacking of the movement. Writing much more recently than Laban, and responding in part to students’ observational inquiries, Stacy Ellen Wolf provides a list of questions to ask when analyzing dance. The questions, which appear in an appendix to a 2007 Theatre Topics article, range from prompts such as, “What is the relationship between the dance and the lyrics of the song?” to the more general, “Who dances? To or with whom? For what purpose? To what effect?”18 Returning to the opening of Come from Away, we can see these questions in action. To take Wolf’s ﬁrst question: the lyrics of the song relate directly to the movement as the performers stamp on the ground and sing “I am an Islander,” with a point to the ground as an indication of place. The lyrics about a place directly correlate to the bodies present in the space, particularly as the musical explores those who “come from away” and the community that welcomes them in. To answer the subsequent chain of questions: the performers move as a group, and the effect of this shows their community spirit and resilience. Notably, they are not dancing as couples or in strict precision but individually. This choreographic choices show from the beginning that each performer has their own story. Asking these sorts of questions offers a way of describing and reading choreography as part of the larger narrative and impression of the musical itself. Wolf offers further questions such as, “Does the dance tell a story? Does it represent conﬂict? Does the dance develop an emotion? Does the dance embody a changed emotional state?”19 In “Welcome to the Rock,” the movement develops an emotion, speciﬁcally pride in place. As the news of the attacks is learned, or recounted, midway through the song, the movement switches to softer gestures, suggesting a changed emotional state. A sense of shock and incredulity is echoed in the body as the stomps stop and upper body postures soften. At the same time, arms rise slowly skyward in an indication of disbelief and despair. Wolf’s questions encourage the development of a language to discuss musical theatre dance. Wolf’s questions, Laban’s analysis framework, and earlier suggestions for entry points into discussions of dance demonstrate that when we look at the choreography of a musical, 18 Stacy Ellen Wolf, “In Defense of Pleasure: Musical Theatre History in the Liberal Arts [A Manifesto],” Theatre Topics 17, no. 1 (2007): 60. 19 Wolf, 57. 24 Dance in Musical Theatre the movement gets parsed through and analyzed for what is speciﬁcally happening physically. This sort of observation may uncover the capacity of dance to carry meaning and reveal what it is that dance can do in musical theatre, whether that is to reveal character psychology, function diegetically as a part of the story, express an unspoken aspect of the libretto, forward the narrative, transition from scene to scene, or express emotions or ideas through metaphor or abstraction. Further Analytical Tools Numerous additional sources and lines of inquiry beyond those outlined above can assist readers in identifying conventions of dance. Elizabeth Titrington Craft and Joanna Dee Das, for example, offer an interdisciplinary approach to the overall analysis of musical theatre that attends to an analysis of dance. They recommend looking at the actual steps being performed in a manner that does not use complicated dance jargon: “Are there lots of turns, kicks, or leaps? What about the shapes the dancers’ bodies make—are the movements curved or angular? Do the performers form patterns on the stage?” Furthermore, in order to pull together the observations, they also advocate that observers “take a step back and reﬂect on how dance and movement serve the show overall.”20 As was demonstrated at the start of this chapter, and as Craft and Das emphasize, a close description of the body can be helpful in analysis. Details of what one sees speciﬁc body parts doing can reveal dramatic intent that is not identiﬁed in the narrative. For example, in Hamilton there is a moment when the ensemble is circled around Hamilton in a wide lung toward him. The men and women of the ensemble align their torsos diagonally from their back heel to the tip of their head. This pose creates a ramp up to Hamilton’s face. The performers’ hands are against their sides, emphasizing the diagonal line, their hands in strong ﬁsts against their hips. These moves highlight the center point, demonstrate strength, and guide the viewer toward Hamilton. Further, as they are in a deep lunge, they perform lower status than the protagonist. The ensemble does not overwhelm him but rather support and enhance his stature. Likewise, as the men and women are portraying his army, the movement emphasizes the military structure with one in command and others in obeisance. This instance demonstrates how a single pose can reveal the meaning in a piece. An examination of the shapes and lines bodies make onstage can be a productive analytical tool toward reading the physicalized semiotics of the musical. Blankenbuehler’s ensemble staging for Hamilton models how the bodies onstage can be part of the building blocks of the narrative.21 Reading the ensemble in this manner demonstrates how different components of the musical can be looked at alongside one another. Dustyn Martincich points to the possibilities of the ensemble in Hamilton when she describes how Blankenbuehler, “mobilizes the ensemble to drive the narrative by activating 20 Elizabeth Titrington Craft and Joanna Dee Das, “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Studying the Stage Musical,” in A Critical Companion to the American Stage Musical, ed. Elizabeth L. Wollman (London: Bloomsbury, 2017), 240. 21 Thank you to Lisa Anne Brain for extended discussions about the intricacies of Andy Blankenbuehler’s choreography in Hamilton. Reading Dance: The Body in Motion Onstage 25 the liminal spaces in and between the scenes.”22 In our larger quest to highlight the body, we have the possibility of reframing the analysis, redirecting the emphasis from the text and score, and drawing attention to what the body is doing within those frameworks. Much time has passed since dancers were merely moving props or ﬁgures who facilitated the scene changes. In fact, over the past several decades, shifts between scenes have become an opportunity to physically engage in transforming the space with bodies at the helm. As Martincich explains, the choreography between scenes shows the passing of time and, importantly, “ﬁll[s] out the necessary storytelling elements of the piece.”23 By following how an object such as a chair or table is moved through the space, we watch choreography in motion. Particularly in a show like Hamilton, where the set changes are highly choreographed, the watching of the journey of one object can reveal the machinery of the whole musical.24 Dance can function in numerous other ways as well, as Mary Jo Lodge traces in “Dance Breaks and Dream Ballets: Transitional Moments in Musical Theater.” Just as there is a sense of suspended disbelief when a character breaks into song, so too is there when one goes from stasis to dancing. These transitional moments offer a key window into the choreographer’s work and styles of reception. As Lodge explains, “the musical itself is also transformed as new modes of communication are introduced... and disrupt the stability of the form that had been previously established.”25 While the dance break and the dream ballet, Lodge’s central objects of analysis, will be discussed at length in upcoming chapters, sufﬁce to say here that it is in these moments historically that dance has been investigated for its depth of meaning as well as its possibilities in the genre.26 The Dancer’s World Finally, a reading of the many nuances of dance must encompass a focus on the dancers themselves. For example, the motivation and process a dancer uses (much as one would identify the actor’s process) can help support what movement is doing whether overtly or covertly. Ryan Donovan describes how “subtext always supports the movement and gives dancers motivation for each phrase,” particularly in the work of Bob Fosse.27 Getting at the subtext or motivation for dancers can be quite difﬁcult, but digging deep here, just as one would for an actor’s process, can be fruitful. An opportunity to talk to (or consult interviews with) a performer in a show, or the choreographer behind a show, can round out any analysis. 22 Dustyn Martincich, “Revolutionary Movement: ‘Non-Stop’ Ensemble Choreography at Work,” in Dueling Grounds: Revolution and Revelation in the Musical “Hamilton,” ed. Mary Jo Lodge and Paul R. Laird (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 149. 23 Martincich, 149. 24 This is also expertly accomplished in Michael Bennett’s choreography of set changes in Dreamgirls (1981) and in Christopher Wheeldon’s choreography and direction in An American in Paris (2014). 25 Mary Jo Lodge, “Dance Breaks and Dream Ballets: Transitional Moments in Musical Theater,” in Gestures of Music Theater: The Performativity of Song and Dance, ed. Dominic Symonds and Millie Taylor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 78. 26 Dance breaks are discussed in numerous chapters across this volume. For a thorough discussion of the dream ballet, see Bud Coleman’s chapter. 27 Ryan Donovan, “Style as Star: Sixty Seconds That Changed Broadway,” in Sternfeld and Wollman, The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical, 49. 26 Dance in Musical Theatre For instance, Jerome Robbins was deeply invested in using method acting in his work, going so far as to keep the performers playing the Jets and the Sharks in West Side Story apart to foster a sense of competition and rivalry outside the show. Bob Fosse, particularly as he became a choreographer/director, was dedicated to having dance serve the speciﬁc intentions of the story, and this began with the dancer building character from an internal embodied interpretation and then moving outward.28 * * * Overall, the body has an opportunity to communicate in ways that modes of language cannot. When we consider choreography and movement in this manner, the body becomes one of the focal points of performance, inviting the audience in to commune and interpret based on their own understanding of bodily codes and physical experiences. Importantly, unlike the book, libretto, or lyrics, dance (and the accompanying music) allows one to think and feel in the moment.29 Dance can summon ideas, emotions, and experiences that the text and score cannot. Though dance, movement, and gesture are by no means universal, there is a sense that if the body is “speaking” in its performance, it is using a language that has an unspoken level of communicative possibility in our shared bodily engagement. In Come from Away, when Mayor Claude (Joel Hatch) takes his ending step in the opening song, his right foot forward, it is distinct from the police constable Oz (Geno Carr)—the mayor has a conﬁdent yet careful step, while the policeman uses a strong and authoritative action. While Beulah Davis (Astrid Van Wieren) has the same intent and direction as Annette (Jenn Colella), their execution of the choreography sets forth the distinctiveness in their character: Beulah has a grounded sense of experience, where Annette is more lifted and unsure. Pointedly, the movement variations become crucial throughout the musical because each actor plays numerous characters, and their embodiment of movements and staging allows for that choice to work. When Colella takes on the role of Beverley Bas, the ﬁrst female captain for American Airlines, her movements are assured and proud, and the contrast with the movement of her other character allows for Colella’s layered and complex performance to be put forth in the show.30 By discovering and unfolding these kinds of physical engagement with choreography and movement, we open up a range of opportunities toward understanding ourselves in an physicalized mode. The tools presented in this chapter provide some suggestions toward articulating movement and, ideally, inspire the development and sharing of individual methods, techniques, and systems of analysis not yet considered in the reading and support of dance in musical theatre. 28 For a detailed investigation of how the director/choreographer role transform dance into an additional language see Michael Jablonski’s chapter 14 in this volume. 29 This study does not allow for an extensive examination of the role of music in musical theatre, even though, as subsequent chapters will show, music and dance are a shared and integrated part of musical theatre. Weaving together theories from musicology and composition is equally important in the analysis of a collaborative art form like musical theatre. 30 Colella received a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical and won the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress, and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical. Reading Dance: The Body in Motion Onstage 27 Bibliography Albright, Ann Cooper. Choreographing Difference: The Body and Identity in Contemporary Dance. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1997. Craft, Elizabeth Titrington, and Joanna Dee Das. “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Studying the Stage Musical.” In A Critical Companion to the American Stage Musical, edited by Elizabeth L. Wollman, 237–50. London: Bloomsbury, 2017. Donovan, Ryan. “Style as Star: Sixty Seconds That Changed Broadway.” In The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical, edited by Jessica Sternfeld and Elizabeth L. Wollman, 48–57. London: Routledge, 2020. Foster, Susan Leigh. Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American Dance. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Franco, Susanne, and Marina Nordera, eds. Dance Discourses: Keywords in Dance Research. London: Routledge, 2007. Gennaro, Liza. “Dance in Musical Theatre Revival and Adaptation: Engaging with the Past while Creating Dances for the Present.” In The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical, edited by Jessica Sternfeld and Elizabeth L. Wollman, 246–54. London: Routledge, 2020. Gennaro, Liza. Making Broadway Dance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Lepecki, André. Exhausting Dance: Performance and the Politics of Movement. New York: Routledge, 2006. Lodge, Mary Jo. “Dance Breaks and Dream Ballets: Transitional Moments in Musical Theater.” In Gestures of Music Theater: The Performativity of Song and Dance, edited by Dominic Symonds and Millie Taylor, 75–90. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Malnig, Julie, ed. Ballroom, Boogie, Shimmy Sham, Shake: A Social and Popular Dance Reader. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009. Martin, Randy. Critical Moves: Dance Studies in Theory and Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998. Martincich, Dustyn. “Revolutionary Movement: ‘Non-Stop’ Ensemble Choreography at Work.” In Dueling Grounds: Revolution and Revelation in the Musical “Hamilton,” edited by Mary Jo Lodge and Paul R. Laird, 149–63. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Mitchell, Theresa. Movement: From Person to Actor to Character. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1998. Rumsey, Phoebe. “The Convergence of Dance Styles in Hamilton: An American Musical.” In The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical, edited by Jessica Sternfeld and Elizabeth L. Wollman, 255–62. London: Routledge, 2020. Savran, David. “The Do-Re-Mi of Musical Theatre Historiography.” In Changing the Subject: Marvin Carlson and Theatre Studies, 1959–2009, edited by Joseph Roach, 223–37. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009. Winkler, Kevin. Big Deal: Bob Fosse and Dance in the American Musical. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Wolf, Stacy Ellen. “In Defense of Pleasure: Musical Theatre History in the Liberal Arts [A Manifesto].” Theatre Topics 17, no. 1 (2007): 51–60. 28 Dance in Musical Theatre

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