WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
#1WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 10:01pm
Does the current revival's dance at the gym look as amazing as this?
I'm a professional. Whenever something goes wrong on stage, I know how to handle it so no one ever remembers. I flash my %#$&.
"Jayne just sat there while Gina flailed around the stage like an idiot."
BrodyFosse123
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/27/06
#2re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 10:06pm
No where remotely close. Especially since it had to be modified and altered due to Karen Olivo's limitations.
All of the dance numbers in this revival are missing something... and that is 'feeling'. They're definitely dancing, but not feeling anything they're dancing.
Dollypop
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/15/03
#2re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 10:08pmScott Wise is always remarkable to watch!
"Long live God!" (GODSPELL)
#3re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 10:10pmCharlotte D' Amboise IS what Anita is supposed to dance like...your eye always goes to her...and THAT'S what the person playing Anita needs...ballet training and presence.
I'm a professional. Whenever something goes wrong on stage, I know how to handle it so no one ever remembers. I flash my %#$&.
"Jayne just sat there while Gina flailed around the stage like an idiot."
#4re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 10:37pm
Charlotte is quite a wonderful dancer.
Funny how her dancing for Cassie in ACL got bashed on here similar to how Karen's dancing for WSS is being bashed.
Updated On: 3/25/09 at 10:37 PM
#5re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 10:43pm
I actually thought Charlotte's Cassie was great...except for her singing...eek. But her acting was very real and believeable.
You should see her doing America in Jerome Robbin's Broadway...phenomenal.
I'm a professional. Whenever something goes wrong on stage, I know how to handle it so no one ever remembers. I flash my %#$&.
"Jayne just sat there while Gina flailed around the stage like an idiot."
#6re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 10:47pm
Does dancing like this still exist on Broadway?
I feel like it has gone by the wayside with the emergence of these insane riff-tastic insanely vocal ranged singers that have emerged who can sing the **** out of "Defying Gravity" but cannot dance a simple box step.
This clip looks like a chorus full of triple-threats rather than a standout few like we have today...
I love America. Just because I think gay dudes should be allowed to adopt kids and we should all have hybrid cars doesn't mean I don't love America.
[turns and winks directly into the camera]
- Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) on 30 Rock
#7re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 10:59pm
Not a lot of classical Jazz is seen on Broadway anymore...
Chicago I think is one of the only shows on Broadway right now with real BROADWAY jazz.
I'm a professional. Whenever something goes wrong on stage, I know how to handle it so no one ever remembers. I flash my %#$&.
"Jayne just sat there while Gina flailed around the stage like an idiot."
WiCkEDrOcKS
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/13/04
#8re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 11:04pm
It's kinda annoying to me that in all of the ads for the show they're playing the Dance music and making it seem so upbeat and lively and energetic. While there are some points where it certainly is, the current production is much more invested in the drama and romance of WSS. I could definitely see some people finding it a bit slow. Kinda false advertising...
But that video clip is amazing.
BNN
Broadway Star Joined: 12/12/05
#9re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 11:08pm
I'm not sure why Karen is recieving so much of the blame here. If you want to criticize a show you really have to go back to those responsible for casting it. OK, maybe Karen Olivo may not be able to dance as well as other actresses, but she was the one selected and I highly doubt she's not constantly practicing or doing her best to improve. I don't know if the current cast is full of the absolute best for this show, but its an extremely difficult show to cast, and it would be impossible to get it to be perfect, no show ever was/is/will be.
As for the triple-threats comment, there are a ton of amazing dancers out there, some working and some not, but even they can't make lukewarm choreography look good. If you ask me, it's the quality of choreography thats changed, not the talent.
Tick Tock
CurtainPullDowner
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/4/04
#10re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 11:18pm
That video made me cry, it was brilliantly filmed and lit.
The costumes are a beautiful dingy palette,
and the Dancing sublime.
The duet between Tony and Maria (of course danced by dancers)
shows Robbin's fluid beauty of style, the way they try to avoid one another and keep ending up together.
Maris'a arm twine is gorgeous as is the lift at the end, as if Tony want's to just protect and take her away.
It is also reminiscent of Robbin's AFTERNOON OF A FAWN.
Anita's kicks and turns add so much to her character, and Charlotte nails it, no matter how un Puerto Rican she may be, she has the flavor down pat.
I think most of the dancers in the new production are capable and are doing a good job, but it lacks the spark and crackle Robbins forced his dancers to give.
I'm gonna watch it again.
#11re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 11:21pm
Karen Olivo is an incredibly dedicated, talented, beautiful, actress. I agree it's not her fault that she got cast as Anita, and she's giving it her best, her acting is the best among all the principals, her singing knocks it out of the park, but it'd be unfair to blame anyone for criticizing her dancing (in)abilities. She's just not a dancer and she has admitted to it before.
After seeing Charlotte D'Amboise do that brilliant choreography, after playing Rita Moreno's Oscar-winning triple threat performance over and over, and after seeing other clips, it is clear that Karen Olivo just doesn't have the dance training required to wow us with her dancing the way the role requires us to. Does she manage to still make Anita a wonderful, full-fleshed, beautifully-acted character? Of course! But she does that through her singing and her acting, and so we forget (or forgive) her shortcomings in the dancing department.
That is a wonderful clip, I can't imagine what it must have felt like for those dancers to have the master himself choreograph his own movements for his own show. How I wish I had seen them.
"Some people can thrive and bloom living life in a living room, that's perfect for some people of one hundred and five. But I at least gotta try, when I think of all the sights that I gotta see, all the places I gotta play, all the things that I gotta be at"
#12re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 11:25pm
I think what bothers me the most about all the press I'm seeing for the new revival is the complete and utter lack of trust in the original material as sufficient enough to carry the show.
The interviews and reviews I've read about this revival make it sound as though if the 1957 production of WSS were playing at the Palace theater right now, it would not be entertaining nor would it be relevant which I don't think is true. The need to "update" the show seems to have become an excuse for the revival's shortcomings.
I love America. Just because I think gay dudes should be allowed to adopt kids and we should all have hybrid cars doesn't mean I don't love America.
[turns and winks directly into the camera]
- Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) on 30 Rock
Byron Abens
Broadway Star Joined: 7/17/08
#13re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 11:27pm
I still feel that the problem with Charlotte D'Amboise in A Chorus Line was that she was doing the wrong choreography. I wish that they had given her the version of Music and the Mirror that Bennett gave to Anne Reinking when she took over from Donna McKechnie, as Charlotte has always looked (to me) more like a dancer in the style of Reinking, i.e. much more based on the lower body/legs, whereas McKechnie was much more about using her upper body.
Does anybody remember the differences between the McKechnie/Reinking versions of that number? Was Anne the only one to use that choreography, or did other Cassie's get the choice/decision made for them of which to use?
#14re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 11:35pm
The original Anita choreography by Peter Gennaro (NOTE: The Sharks' choreography was by Gennaro not Robbins) was dumbed down for Karen Olivo.
The blame for that rests entirely upon the heads of Arthur Laurents And Joey McNeeley, who decided their production of West Side Story did not need an Anita who could dance the original choreography.
Karen Olivo is a talented actress and singer, but she is undoubtedly the WORST Anita ever to play on Broadway.
There, as Arthur likes to say, you have it.
CurtainPullDowner
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/4/04
#15re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 11:53pm
This WEST SIDE STORY fever has made me listen to the Original Broadway Recording over and over and Chita really had the perfect voice for Anita.
In Jerry Herman's book he says when he worked with her in the early years, he just kept handing her songs and she ran with them all.
I know Peter did AMERICA, did he do her moves in DANCE AT THE GYM also?
Even so, the way the dancing all melds and fills the stage must have taken some help, but it looks so Robbins when danced properly.
theatreguy
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/31/03
#16re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 11:54pmI wouldn't say Laurents and McKneely would get equal blame for casting her. From what Laurents says in Mainly on Directing, McKneely had "little regard for her dancing" and was very reluctant to cast her. But Laurents was so taken with her interpretation of the role "that if she couldn't dance Anita as choreographed by Peter Gennaro for Chita Rivera, then Joey McKneely would have to rechoreograph it for Karen Olivo - she was the important to the play."
BrodyFosse123
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/27/06
#17re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/25/09 at 11:55pm
With all due respect... her name is ANN Reinking (not Anne).
From my memory (I was 11 years old when I saw Ann play Cassie twice on Broadway), Ann's version of "Music and the Mirror" incorporated more extensions/kicks and Ann utilized her long flowing hair to incredible effect, especially when she was facing the mirror.
#18re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/26/09 at 12:08am
if she couldn't dance Anita as choreographed by Peter Gennaro for Chita Rivera, then Joey McKneely would have to rechoreograph it for Karen Olivo - she was the important to the play.
What utter twaddle. You have to wonder whether Arthur actually believes the idiotic things that come out of his mouth or if it's just senility finally setting in.
That kind of preposterous thinking would have been shot down at a casting session by Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins.
And if Floria Lasky were still alive, she would fire Joey McNeely from ever having anything to do with a Robbins work again.
By displaying such callous disregard for the needs of the show, the two of them have mugged the material.
Byron Abens
Broadway Star Joined: 7/17/08
#19re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/26/09 at 12:09am
Sorry about the typos. I know far more Anne's than I do Ann's, so I just automatically add the "e" without thinking.
Just another example though of a dancer who understood the motivation behind the dance. I just went back and watched the hospital hallucination segment from All That Jazz on youtube (sadly my DVD is in storage in a box in my parents' basement in Cleveland). An absolutely stunning segment, not to mention every other dance sequence in that movie. Just goes to show what can happen when you have dancers and choreographers/directors who trust in the movement to heighten the emotion of the piece, something that I think is just lacking in this current WSS.
CurtainPullDowner
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/4/04
#20re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/26/09 at 12:23am
Bryon, you are threadjacking, but your point is applicable.
When Cassie's dance was modified for Ann, it heightened her strengths.
As a dancer, Olivo, a wonderful singer/actress has no dancing strengths.
So the material and how it was brillantly created is lessened.
This argument will live.
#21re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/26/09 at 12:24am"The worst Broadway Anita" may be the first Anita to ever win the Tony.
Byron Abens
Broadway Star Joined: 7/17/08
#22re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/26/09 at 12:35am
I apologize for the thread jack, just went a bit round-about to show that the dancers are just not connecting with the material the way that the best of them used to, though again not entirely their own fault. Without that strong hand to guide them they can only do so much on their own.
And I feel that not only was the choreography for Anita dumbed down, but you can tell that the other girls are holding back quite a bit so as not to outshine the "lead." I think some of them, with the right direction and the right Anita, would be able to reach that connection with the material that is currently lacking.
dramamama611
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/4/07
#23re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/26/09 at 12:52am
Brody (and others):
That is how I felt about the choreography, in particular, and the entire production, more generally: NO SOUL.
They danced because it was "time", not because they felt anything. For all of Laurents blabbering about the level of ACTING this production was focusing on, this is the exact area that never developed.
If we're not having fun, then why are we doing it?
These are DISCUSSION boards, not mutual admiration boards. Discussion only occurs when we are willing to hear what others are thinking, regardless of whether it is alignment to our own thoughts.
CurtainPullDowner
Broadway Legend Joined: 11/4/04
#24re: WSS Revival- Dance At The Gym
Posted: 3/26/09 at 1:38am
Because the ability to mesh the dancing and singing into the story is missing.
Watch the ending of that clip how Tomy ane Maria are meeting and kissing blend into the scene with Bernatdo and Riff and Tony.
Breathtaking.
