Some dance thing I just want to clear up- Page 3

[dramaqueen2]

Posted: 1/1/07 at 4:19pm

check out brigadoon. during machonnachy square.
lots of swishing happening there, if i remember correctly!
good luck!

[CurtainPullDowner]

Posted: 1/1/07 at 4:49pm

Oh please bring swishing back Josh, it is so missing on Broadway.

[AnythingCanHappen]

Posted: 1/1/07 at 5:31pm

ive got swish... but it aint from no skirt.

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 3/12/07 at 12:02pm

I wouldn't say it's "missing," per se, but there's not much these days. It really much depends on the time period. Although it doesn't come up much in the '20s, there is some in "DROWSY CHAPERONE". There is a little tiny bit in the song "My Junk" during "SPRING AWAKENING." We could get some in "CURTAINS" since parts of the show-within-a-show takes place in a saloon, but I haven't seen it yet, so I don't know.

There is also some (depending on who's in the number) in JOSEPH, but if it is, it's during "ONE MORE ANGEL," done by the mid-wives as part of their "square dance break". But in the 1992 London/Broadway revival (as depicted in the 1999 filmed version with Donny Osmond), there is also some in "Joseph's Coat" as the wives are twirling around in their handmaiden-style dresses.

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 3/15/07 at 2:25pm

There's not just a little bit in CURTAINS -- there's PLENTY OF IT!
Mostly in the show-within-a-show numbers, but Jill Paice does some Vera Ellen-style grasping of the skirt and twirling it on her pas de deux with David Hyde Pierce in the song "A Tough Act To Follow".

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 6/2/07 at 11:39pm

Oh, and did I mention:

LONE STAR LOVE?!

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 8/8/07 at 9:13am

Hold on a sec- I did another show called REDHEAD. The can-can dance in Essie's dream ballet had a lot of skirtwork in it (well, it's a can-can).

There was some in my production of MAN OF LA MANCHA, mainly in Aldonza's dance in IT'S ALL THE SAME. I'm doing a production of WEST SIDE, and I'm hoping for this one to have a lot, especially in AMERICA.

[Fanadu_Xtreme]

Posted: 8/8/07 at 12:36pm

How is your choreography going?

Are you allowed to be a choreographer and a music director?
Updated On: 8/8/07 at 12:36 PM

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 12/6/07 at 9:42am

I'm not sure. It would be kind of grueling to be both at one time. It's weird to be playing both music and choreographing at one time.

By the way, I saw CURTAINS last night. The choreography was awesome as always, especially all those crazy splits and skirtwork in "Thataway" and "Kansasland."

[onceadancer2]

Posted: 12/11/07 at 12:35pm

I don't know where you reside or your knowledge of ballet, but some ballets where the skirts, or dress, swish are:

Serenade
Vienna Waltzes
Ballet Imperial (now called Piano Concerto No. 2)
Dances At A Gathering
Tschiakovsky Suite No. 2 (or 3, I forget!)
Liebeslieder Walzer
In the Night
Brahms Schoenberg Quartet
Emeralds (from the Diamonds Trilogy)
Valse Fantaisie

Miriam

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 12/13/07 at 9:04pm

how about Revelations by Alvin Ailey

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 12/23/07 at 5:52pm

bump...

Ailey's Revelations has plenty of it.

[jbdc]

Posted: 12/23/07 at 9:49pm

I find this thread-- and people's interest in it every so often-- fascinating.

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 1/11/08 at 12:57am

I just saw the revival of GREASE. Yes, I'd say there's more skirtwork in this than I can remember seeing in the 1994 revival or the movie combined. This is becoming pretty much of a Kathleen Marshall thing. She's been using it in Kiss Me Kate and The Pajama Game, so there was no doubt that she was going to put it in Grease.

[jbdc]

Posted: 1/15/08 at 8:11pm

Josh, on a break during a rehearsal today, I ran into a friend rehearsing another show, and she had on a rehearsal skirt. And we talked about swishing. You've clearly had an effect on me.

[AlexanderB]

Posted: 1/15/08 at 9:29pm

I agree, this obsession is crazy!

If you really want to get into swishage, check out some Martha Graham...girlfriend contracts AND swishes!

Look into Graham's CRONICLE as well, some hard core choreographed TECHNICAL swishing.

[jbdc]

Posted: 1/15/08 at 9:56pm

True, Alexander. Paul Taylor co-opted a lot of Martha's swishing, as well. Actually, it's more of a throw or a flick than a swish. Swishing is beneath Modernists.

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 1/22/08 at 10:46pm

Josh, on a break during a rehearsal today, I ran into a friend rehearsing another show, and she had on a rehearsal skirt. And we talked about swishing. You've clearly had an effect on me.

That's so nice of you to say. That's real funny. I remember I did INTO THE WOODS at college, and one of the actresses (the Baker's wife) had a rehearsal skirt on, and just to be funny, she'd come up next to me, and splash me with cool air by swishing her skirt. It was so funny.

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 4/23/08 at 12:12pm

There's just a couple of teeny tiny bits in THE PRODUCERS, but there's more in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.

Maybe Susan just finds a good time to use skirtwork because of the costumes and stuff.

[SwtHrtBallerina]

Posted: 4/24/08 at 1:08am

this is a random thing, but I was reminded of it reading this topic. A good friend of mine and I were at rehearsal one weekend a couple years ago. Well, he was commenting on how he had always wanted to put on one of our girls costumes that had a flow-y skirt on it that he could "twirl in" as he put it. Of course i laughed, and said, "lets go find you one". We went into the costumes and found on that he could put on.

I will never forget that! It was the funniest thing ever to see my friend (20 yr old or something at the time) doing chaines and soutenus around the rooms in a skirt, just to feel what it was like when the skirt twirled and swished around him. It was too funny!!

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 4/26/08 at 11:17pm

This just in -- there is quite a bit in CRY-BABY.
Some just do it on their own, but in other instances when the guy holds her left hand and puts his left hand behind his back, and the girl uses her free hand to hold her skirt out, I'd say it counts.

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 6/24/08 at 9:56am

Just saw productions of RAGTIME and Yeston's PHANTOM at my camp that used it.
They used it in PHANTOM ("Melodie de Paris") because the choreographer knew that they would be working with long skirts in it, so she suggested holding them out while dancing. It worked.

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 11/24/08 at 11:47am

There was a recent production of HALF A SIXPENCE I saw in Goodspeed that used it quite a bit in its numbers (most of it was done by the flirtatious barmaid Laura, played by Adrienne Couvillion).

There was:
Just a tiny bit in MONEY TO BURN
For an entire section in A PROPER GENTLEMAN (the can-can bit)
I don't remember any in IF THE RAIN'S GOT TO FALL
There's only a brief second of it in FLASH BANG WALLOP (Blink and you'll miss it)
A lot in THE PARTY'S ON THE HOUSE
During the curtain call dance, Sara Gettelfinger as Ann dances in place while swishing the skirt.

That was probably the most recent example I saw. And I know there's a lot more of it in the movie, because there's more dancing in the movie.

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 4/25/09 at 12:32pm

Also, there is quite a lot in the recent Encores! production of Finian's Rainbow.

[Josh Freilich]

Posted: 6/11/09 at 12:28am

There's pretty much a handful in Sergio Trujillo's choreography for the Havana scene in the revival of GUYS AND DOLLS.