#26
Posted: 7/18/10 at 1:22pm
Carlos: What you see as "by the numbers" dancing, for many of us looks like DYNAMICS, the kind of impactive phrasing and neat finishes that was once a coveted quality of theatrical (Fosse/Bennett) dancing.
Ah, dynamics. Isn't that what's missing from a lot of choreography today?
Nick2--I would add Jerome Robbins and Michael Kidd and Gower Champion to that list.
To some degree. what made the contributions of those choreographer/directors during the musical's Golden Age so great was their innate senses of dynamics--highs/lows, darks/lights, fast/slow and how a number builds--and how to use those dynamics to tell the story. Because that's what they were, even more than they were choreographers: They were great storytellers.
What excites me in Cheryl's gestures and dancing--which besty finds wooden and Carlos finds mechanical--is that they are Bennett-approved moves and gestures, less like bad steps and awkward "hand choreography" and more like the musical-theater equivalent of Bertolt Brecht's theory of Gestus: revealing a character's psychological truth through "concrete physical behavior" and "selective realism."
What you see as "wooden," I picture Michael seeing in a rehearsal studio or a runthrough and saying excitedly, "That's it! That's it!" Perhaps Cheryl locked it into a dancer's physical memory a touch too slavishly, but that's what dancers do.
So the "impactive phrasing" that Nick2 mentions--I see that as the kind of specificity and emotional truth that was missing from the dancing in the current West Side and the recent Chorus Line revivals--and missing from much of the work of many of the choreographers currently working on Broadway.
Perhaps Cheryl's performance is an example of a performing style that has become dated and "old hat." Perhaps I am old hat. But I saw that clip and thought, "Wow. She's good--she's good the way I remember people being good."
Ah, dynamics. Isn't that what's missing from a lot of choreography today?
Nick2--I would add Jerome Robbins and Michael Kidd and Gower Champion to that list.
To some degree. what made the contributions of those choreographer/directors during the musical's Golden Age so great was their innate senses of dynamics--highs/lows, darks/lights, fast/slow and how a number builds--and how to use those dynamics to tell the story. Because that's what they were, even more than they were choreographers: They were great storytellers.
What excites me in Cheryl's gestures and dancing--which besty finds wooden and Carlos finds mechanical--is that they are Bennett-approved moves and gestures, less like bad steps and awkward "hand choreography" and more like the musical-theater equivalent of Bertolt Brecht's theory of Gestus: revealing a character's psychological truth through "concrete physical behavior" and "selective realism."
What you see as "wooden," I picture Michael seeing in a rehearsal studio or a runthrough and saying excitedly, "That's it! That's it!" Perhaps Cheryl locked it into a dancer's physical memory a touch too slavishly, but that's what dancers do.
So the "impactive phrasing" that Nick2 mentions--I see that as the kind of specificity and emotional truth that was missing from the dancing in the current West Side and the recent Chorus Line revivals--and missing from much of the work of many of the choreographers currently working on Broadway.
Perhaps Cheryl's performance is an example of a performing style that has become dated and "old hat." Perhaps I am old hat. But I saw that clip and thought, "Wow. She's good--she's good the way I remember people being good."
