Anita Dancing 'America'- Page 3

[Hest882]

Posted: 3/9/09 at 4:18pm

These 3 actresses didn't make Anita's role a dancer's role because of their abilities. It was always a dancer's role so therefore that is why those women were cast!

Exactly. It's designed as a dancer's role, so to dumb it down flies in the face of what the role is intented to be--and the impact a real dancer can have in the role.

[LadyDramaturg2]

Posted: 3/9/09 at 5:31pm

You know how they say that in a musical, the character breaks into song because the emotion is so big, dialogue can't contain it anymore? [That's for authors -- you know, "why does your character start to sing now?]

Well, I think that for Robbins, his dancers burst into dance because the dialogue/singing couldn't contain it anymore. It just got too big and pent up inside you, so that now you just have to MOVE.

To say, "why does Anita have to be a dancer?" is making too small a query: it's why does this show have to be (partly) built on Dance, as one of the pillars used to construct it.

If you say, Basically that because Chita Rivera, Rita Moreno, and Debbie Allen had been cast as Anita in the past, that is why Anita is perceived to be a dancer's role,

then, you aren't seeing that the ROLE, as a part of this larger structure, the Musical, was created before anyone was cast. So, Chita was cast because she was a kick-ass dancer -- which is what the role, and the Musical, demanded.

Not the other way around.

[ACL2006]

Posted: 3/10/09 at 12:12am

Natalie Cortez is about 6 months pregnant right now. I guess that's why she didn't audition for WSS. Maybe in time she'll join the cast as a replacement.

[ljay889]

Posted: 3/11/09 at 8:56pm

This is a better video of Allen's AMERICA. It's the complete number.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkJ-axYUj24

[Marquise]

Posted: 3/11/09 at 9:44pm

ljay that video has been posted elsewhere.

there is a whole thread dedicated to it and i've even linked it on this very thread.

[logan0215]

Posted: 3/11/09 at 10:02pm

Is there any surviving footage of Chita's Anita?

[ljay889]

Posted: 3/11/09 at 10:05pm

I don't think there is...which really sucks. . There's only pictures.

[logan0215]

Posted: 3/11/09 at 10:08pm

Not WSS, but fun nonetheless:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53f2ARWfP2E

[CSonBroadway]

Posted: 3/11/09 at 10:08pm

Anyone have pictures of Chita?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/11/09 at 10:16pm

logan--that Chita tribute is surprisingly well done!

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 3/12/09 at 12:43am

Thanks logan.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 3/12/09 at 1:21am

Wow, Debbie Allen is EXCELLENT. I sent the video to my sister (who is much more of a dancer than I am )

Edit: Also watched Part 1 and love Josie de Guzman as Maria. Wish I'd been able to see this production!

Updated On: 3/12/09 at 01:21 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/19/09 at 7:29pm

And here's to you, Peter Gennaro, without whom West Side Story would have been strictly East Side.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 8:09am

Bump, for comparison's sake.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 11:39am

Let me just say what nobody's supposed to say and maybe I'm the only person to think this, but I think part of the reason the number doesn't soar the way it should in the current revival is because not only is Karen Olivo not a trained dancer, but the song itself isn't that great. I think the number in the film is so perfect, the lyrics are better, and the dynamic between the men and women works so much better than just having the Shark girl be the disagreeing one (and let me just say that I hate that Laurents made the poor Shark girl act like she had a mental disorder during "America").
Of course, when you have a dancer like Debbie Allen, the number becomes about the dancing and that brilliant Leonard Bernstein music (God, how I love that crescendo at the end). Seeing Allen perform, you can't keep your eyes off her, you couldn't care less about the song itself, and so the whole number works. When you have an actress who can move but not dance, then the whole thing just falls flat.
I didn't think Anita had to be a perfect dancer until I saw the current revival and I got it. She is the head of the Shark girls, and Gennaro and Robbins defined this through her dancing. Not only that, but it is through her brilliant dancing that we get two important aspects of her personality: 1) That she has what it takes to stand up to the Jets (as seen by her "defeating" them in the "Dance at the Gym" number... in this revival it is Graziella who wins), and 2) That she is full of life and energy (as seen in "America" which eventually makes her loss and her subsequent rape all the more tragic, because we know she has lost that life.

Updated On: 3/26/09 at 11:39 AM

[ljay889]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 11:43am

I think I am the only one who hates the movie AMERICA. It looks like way too many people dancing, and it takes the focus off Anita.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 11:47am

Ray--that says it all.

It's all about the crescendo in the music at the end being matched by the crescendo in the choreography. That soar--which should make your heart beat faster--is what defines the life spirit of the character of Anita for the audience.

Without that, Anita two scenes in the second act are simply melodrama.

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 12:04pm

Can't resist a funny Chita story, since someone was asking about pictures.

I have a "Making of West Side Story" book that features lots of pictures -- I'll have to go through it, but one of them is of Chita kicking her leg up during Dance At The Gym. The really high kick that's supposed to be there. So when I stage doored A Dancer's Life, I had her sign that picture. She looked at it and went, "Oh no, my leg is bent! That's terrible." And laughed. I certainly didn't notice it...

And Joey, that's a fantastic comment about the end of "America." In addition to being a crescendo at that point, I think more instruments are added and you go up to really, really high notes, which really creates that effect. But yeah, I certainly couldn't have put it better myself. I thought I felt let down at the end of "America" because I was used to the guys picking the girls up, and there was no big ending like that, but what you said makes more sense.

God when you think about that music for "America"...how exciting, how... The combination of latin music, jazz, plus the technical elements of tritones and hemiolas and lowered sevenths and tone clusters...GENIUS!

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 12:47pm

tritones and hemiolas and lowered sevenths and tone clusters...GENIUS!

I have no idea what that means but it's nice to know there's a rason it's so exciting.

Now picture an ebullient Lenny conducting with his arms and hands and shoulders and getting the orchestra to play it with the proper spirit by singing the orchestration to them:

"Yah-tah-tah, tah-tah-tah, TAH-TAH-TAH!
Yah-tah-tah, tah-tah-tah, TAH-TAH-TAH!..."

I wish I had a video.

[wickedrentq]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 1:00pm

""Yah-tah-tah, tah-tah-tah, TAH-TAH-TAH!
Yah-tah-tah, tah-tah-tah, TAH-TAH-TAH!..."

Well, you just demonstrated one of the most well-known hemiolas in the score. A hemiola is a combination of or juxtapostion of duple meter and triple meter. The yah-tah-tah tah-tah-tah is duple meter -- yah-tah-tah is one beat, tah-tah-tah is the second beat, so that's 2 beats = duple meter, but then TAH-TAH-TAH is 3 beats, 1 beat for each TAH, so that's triple meter.

Just saw that time article accusing the show and score of being overrated, calling "Tonight" and "Maria" bland. Boy did I send a letter to that editor. How can Tonight be bland with the orchestra playing underneath those fast staccatos, making the song race? Or when Tony gets ahead of the orchestra in the middle of Maria because he's so excited? I screamed at anger in the middle of reading that article, and my boss, who apparently read the article already, knew exactly why I was angry.

[Dolly_Levi]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 1:29pm

Logan, terrific video. Thanks for sharing.

[Kad]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 3:13pm

"I think I am the only one who hates the movie AMERICA. It looks like way too many people dancing, and it takes the focus off Anita. "

How can you hate it? It's arguably the best change the movie made. The lyrics are a lot sharper and have more bite than the one-sided attack on Puerto Rico in the musical version, it gives the Sharks more to do and humanizes them more, and gives greater depth to both Anita and Bernardo and their relationship. The focus IS taken off of Anita, but for the movie's purposes the focus shouldn't be entirely on her. It's on the Sharks as a whole and I feel it's stronger for it.

[hmpeterson]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 3:33pm

I don't think the movie version takes the spotlight off Anita at all.

In that scene, she shows she is not afraid to stand up to her "leader of the gang" boyfriend in front of all his people and speak her mind. She doesn't agree with him and she doesn't back down from it. And to prove her point, she breaks into song and dance. And does she dance!!! Her dancing certainly sets her apart from everyone else.

Plus Kad is right, it give the Sharks a voice and you get a sense of their mind set during everything that is going on. The stage production really doesn't give the Sharks a chance to do that. And it shows the depth of Bernardo and Anita's relationship.

So I also think the movie version of "America" was an improvement.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 3:39pm

I agree with you both. Not only do the lyrics actually manage to reflect a true debate, but the way it manages to incorporate the idea of a battle between the sexes within a racialized group is pretty brilliant and something that even films (let alone musical films) today can't manage to do. It actually gives a reason as to why Anita (and the other women) is singing those lyrics, and it isn't hatred for her island as the stage show can imply, but it's because she is dealing with a new freedom that was unknown to her in the island. So in that way, not only does it not steal focus from Anita (and seriously, who in that movie can manage to steal focus from Rita Moreno? Nobody), but it adds a depth to her that is simply not seen in the stage show. It's one of the most brilliant moments in the movie, and one of the many reasons the film stands as one of the best stage-film adaptations in Hollywood history.

[LadyDramaturg2]

Posted: 3/26/09 at 3:41pm

Made me cry and get goosebumps at the same time, that video.
Updated On: 3/26/09 at 03:41 PM