Dance video Analysis

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In the first years following the depression, black musical theatre continued to thrive. Eleven black musical shows opened in the first two seasons of the 1930s (Woll, 1989). Production costs for colored shows were much lower than those for white shows. Scenery was cheap or non-existent, and colored performers were often willing to work for whatever wages were offered.

Black performers continued to struggle against racial prejudice, even in the union that claimed to represent them. As the Depression settled in, changes in Actors’ Equity rules led to lower wages for black performers. When producer/director Earl Carroll wanted to hire fifty black actors for his new Vanities revue, he received a special waiver from Equity to hire them as “atmosphere” rather than as performers. By changing their status from “chorus” to “atmosphere,” Carroll was able to pay each performer only $19 each week (Woll, 1989).

Black performers also continued to battle racial prejudice in American society. Even Bill Robinson’s Broadway celebrity status did nothing to protect him on the street.

Florenz Ziegfeld claimed that Robinson was booked to perform in his upcoming Follies, but in reality, Robinson was engaged to perform in Brown Buddies (1930), a new musical revue produced by his manager, Marty Forkins. After three weeks of out-of-town previews, the show was scheduled to open at the Liberty Theater in New York. Two days before opening, Bill Robinson was shot.

He had left his hotel and was hailing a taxi to take him to the train station when he heard the screams of Mrs. Annie Bies. The white woman pointed after a fleeing black youth, who had her purse in his hands. Bill dropped his bags and gave chase, calling to the boy to stop. When the youth kept running, Bill pulled his gold-plated revolver and fired. He missed the youth. Patrolman Michael Horan heard the shots, ran in their direction, and seeing a black man with a gun, fired. Bill dropped. The purse-snatcher escaped, and Bill was taken to Mercy Hospital. Treated for a superficial wound in the left arm, Bill was released and resumed his journey to New York. Two days later he opened in Brown Buddies as scheduled, with his arm in a white satin sling, and managed to carry on until the finale, when suddenly he felt faint. He whispered to his fellow cast members, “Get me off.” Leaning on the arm of a large male dancer, he reached the wings and collapsed. But he went on as scheduled the following night. Asked how he felt about being shot while trying to help the woman who lost her purse, Bill stated he felt no rancor toward Officer Horan, which further endeared him to police departments all over the country. (Haskins & Mitgang, 1988, pp.197-8)

Brown Buddies was not a critical or a commercial success. The plot loosely supported several song-and-dance numbers. But Robinson brought down the house every night and received rave reviews. Wrote critic Richard Lockridge:

And now we move TO THE FEET OF Mr. Robinson---the subtle feet, the amazingly rolling eyes, the strange chuckling sounds with which he applauds the feet when they perform, always to his apparent surprise, some peculiarly difficult evolution. He croons with his feet and laughs with them and watches them in wide-eyed amazement as they do things which apparently surprise him as much as they do the rest of us, and please him, if possible, even more. (cited in Woll, 1989, p. 143)

Adelaide Hall was also credited with carrying the show.

America and the Broadway stage continued to struggle along hand in hand. Bread lines became a daily event for many New Yorkers. As breadlines grew, so did evidence of social unrest. The Great Depression swiftly forced Americans to take a realistic view of personal necessities. It had a dual polarizing impact on theatrical themes. On the one hand, there were musicals and revues that helped audiences escape the grim realities of current life.

Anything Goes captured the spirit of musical comedy and spotlighted dancing and singing. Here is the title song from the revival, performed on the Tony's in 1988. Patti LuPone, a star of the Broadway stage, plays Reno Sweeney in this version. You will remember Sutton Foster from the Tony Awards that we watched a couple of weeks ago. Foster was a divergence from the usual casting of the female lead. Foster, to me, is a cleancut girl-next-door. Normally that role would go to a brassy, woman-of-the-world, someone more like LuPone:

Video: Anything Goes

(2007)

You may also enjoy watching this video below. The video shows Sutton Foster and company in a rehearsal of the full version of the title song. (The Tony Award performance was about half the length!) The rehearsal scenario offers you a glimpse of the performers as humans rather than just as a part of a glitzy picture. For instance, you will notice after the big dance, Foster stands centerstage breathing deeply, while the chorus begins to sing. Later, she turns upstage for several counts to catch her breath before her last big note!

Video: "Anything Goes" rehearsal

[If time is short, watch a minute or two]

(2011)

Escapism continued to play on Broadway. On the other hand, realism and political satire also became staples of the Broadway stage. Broadway dance reflected both ends of the escapism/realism spectrum. Even revue shows managed to stitch together entertainment and social commentary, touching on political topics with increasingly barbed satire communicated through song and dance.

Dwindling ticket sales continued to plague Broadway theaters, forcing many dancers and singers to join the ranks of the unemployed. But, according to Broadway historian, Laurence Maslon:

Out of this adversity came an extraordinary decade of artistic growth for the Broadway musical, which, next to the daily newspaper, became the most vibrant and incisive indicator of what was going on in America. Never again would Broadway reflect its country’s concerns with such crystal clarity. (2004, p. 131)

The Americana revues incorporated contemporary American life into song and dance numbers. The third revue, which opened October 5th, 1932, was notable for two reasons. First, it included the song “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” a lament about the plight of the working man reduced by the Depression to begging on the street. This song became the signature ballad of the great Depression. Second, this last Americana revue brought modern dance--then called “The New Dance”--onto the Broadway stage.

First of all, what do we mean by “concert artists” and “concert dance?” For the purpose of our course, we will use the following simple definition: concert dance refers to dancing that occurs on stage, by trained dancers, in front of an audience that expects to see only dance for the evening. Traditionally, ballet, modern dance and world dance pieces, performed by dancers trained in these styles, are considered concert dance.

At the time concert dance became prominent on Broadway, dancers in New York City enjoyed a fluidity of opportunities that allowed for them to juggle Broadway show employment with concert dance rehearsals and performances. The technical training of the dancers was valued by the Broadway community. Often, modern dance companies were hired to perform their repertory pieces within a show. Though this practice did little to support the storyline, it probably saved producers money, since the initial period of rehearsal that it took to put together each dance piece was already done.

Now, back to Americana. A revolutionary modern dance company, the Humphrey-Weidman Company performed repertory works that were interpolated [interjected between parts] into the Americana revue. [The show credits two companies, the Charles Weidman Dancers and The Doris Humphrey Dance Group, who correspond to the choreographer of each piece.] Jose Limon—who would later achieve fame with his own dance company and his own signature modern technique—performed in Americana as part of the Humphrey-Weidman Company. [Limon performed in 7 Broadway musicals and 4 Broadway dance specials.] In the following reading, he talks about the Humphrey-Weidman school during the Depression and Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman’s participation in the Broadway community:

Doris and Charles were whistling in the dark, so to speak, to keep up their spirits and courage.

Things were going from bad to worse in the country. The unreal world of politics, senseless and strident, would impinge crudely on our minuscule universe. One day we learned that a certain Franklin Delano Roosevelt, of whom we had been vaguely aware as a remote figure in a place called Albany…was now president. So removed, so isolate, so ignorant were we when it came to anything that did not concern our obsessive preoccupation with dance!

This innocence was not to last much longer. There was widespread deprivation, hunger, misery, and protest. The wolf, raging and slavering, was at the door, making ready to lope up the stairs of many homes in America, including ours on Eighteenth Street. Most of the girls in the company came from comfortable middle-class families and were immune to the contagion of poverty. But others were not so fortunate. Those who were on their own, who had to work as salesgirls or waitresses or at odd jobs, felt the pinch, as did the young men.

It was at this point that the writer, J.P. McEvoy, whose musical revue, Americana, was being produced by the Shuberts, persuaded the producers to engage the Humphrey-Weidman company to perform some of their concert pieces intact, as part of the show. It was agreed that “The Shakers,” “Water Study,” “The Little Soldiers,” and “Ringside” would fit nicely into the production. Doris chose not to appear personally. Charles would; moreover, he was to create several original production numbers for the show.

Opening night at the Shubert Theater on Forty-Fourth Street was a sensation. Americana had for its theme the Depression that was afflicting the land, treated with irony and compassionate humor. McEvoy had written an unusually adult show, and the miracle was that it was such a great success. The dances, especially, excited comment. For the first time the New Dance was introduced into the commercial theater, a prophetic and auspicious event that was to lead to a fecund association over the next decades. Charles, in particular, was to function successfully in the Broadway arena, presaging the later success of Hanya Holm, Helen Tamiris, Agnes de Mille, and Jerome Robbins. (Limon, 1998, pp. 38-9)

Below is a reconstruction of one of Doris Humphrey's pieces that appeared in Americana. Picture the society who was just getting used to jazz. Imagine the reaction of the audience to "The New Dance."

(2011) Water Study was choreographed by Doris Humphrey in 1928. This video shows a reconstruction of the work.

The piece is performed in silence and the only sounds are those the dancers make as they move.

Modern dance began to infiltrate Broadway. The addition of serious, “real” themes to musical offerings paralleled the journey that many concert dance artists were taking in their choreography and performance. With its exciting new commitment to the exploration of “real” emotions and its determination to shatter the boundaries of movement in traditional dance (namely ballet), modern dance opened up new possibilities for movement on the Broadway stage. Broadway shows benefitted aspiring modern choreographers, too, providing them with regular employment that enabled them to pay their rent, fund artistic dreams and perform regularly for an audience.

As Maslon said, the artistic side of Broadway flourished. This was particularly true for dance. With the inclusion of modern dance, the technical training of Broadway dancers and the emotional content of Broadway choreography both expanded. When these two elements came together on stage, the result was revolutionary.

Although Show Boat had made great strides in integrating music and script, dance numbers had yet to be intricately woven into the fabric of musical storytelling. One of the most consistent forces in the evolution of Broadway dance is the interpolation [interjection between parts] of random dance styles into the current standard dances. A wide range of dances often co-existed in the same show. Broadway historian, Mark N. Grant, cited the musicals The Student Prince and The Desert Song as examples of musicals that “used interpolation, mixing in extraneous dances like vaudeville numbers, fairy ballets, eighteenth century gavottes, Spanish-flavored dances” (2004, p. 249). Early shows that included modern dance did little to change the practice of interpolation. Though the theme of current national events ran through the Americana revue—and modern dance was certainly a main event of the period—you can well imagine the disjointed evening experienced by the show’s audience. "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" and "Water Study" are two very different numbers!

Many of the dancer/choreographers who were revolutionizing concert dance in America also danced on Broadway stages. We will continue to discuss the impact of concert dance on Broadway as the unit progresses.

Another show that chronicled national happenings was As Thousands Cheer (1933), a revue show that regularly rotated numbers to keep up with current events.

As Thousands Cheer had as its concept the daily newspaper, with each number and skit taken from (or performed in ironic contrast to) a headline…projected across the proscenium [the arch at the front part of the stage that frames it]. This structure allowed Hart to parody such wet-ink-fresh subjects as Gandhi, … the building of Rockefeller Center, and the outgoing Hoover administration (the sketch has the lame-duck ex-president and his wife running up a huge last-minute long-distance bill on the eve of FDR’s inauguration). [Composer Irving] Berlin took a gentler swipe at society...by ribbing Josephine Baker (“Harlem on My Mind”), Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton (“How’s Chances?”), even the hoary conventions of the revue format itself (“Supreme Court Hands Down Important Decision”), which says that revues are forbidden to reprise their most memorable songs in the finale. (Maslon, 2004, p. 167)

Earlier in the course, we discussed the inclusion of ballet dances in musicals and variety shows. (Remember The Black Crook?) Concert dance had been included in Broadway offerings for decades.

Dancers en pointe [wearing ballet dancing shoes called “pointe shoes” that have hardened toe boxes to stand on the very tips of the toes] and ballet choruses continued to make appearances in many shows that also included vaudeville-style acts.

Albertina Rasch was the first documented female dance director on Broadway. Although she trained at the Opera Ballet School in Vienna, when she came to America, she quickly grasped the commercial possibilities of the musical theatre. She opened a dance studio in New York and began to choreograph for Broadway and Hollywood. She formed her own company, which she called “Albertina Rasch and the American Ballet” (also billed as the Albertina Rasch Dancers and the Albertina Rasch Girls) and combined syncopation with ballet steps--often en pointe!—to originate a new style of dance that she named “symphonic jazz” (Austin, 1997, p. 67). “Rasch Girls” were featured in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 and Ballyhoo of 1932.

Rasch’s goal was to entertain. She made little attempt to integrate storyline into her dance numbers (Kislan, 1987). She often included a “dream ballet” in the shows for which she choreographed. [The dream ballet—which would soon be beautifully integrated and eventually overused in future musicals—is a musical dance sequence that allows the choreographer to take the audience into a character’s dream, basically allowing anything to happen! Rasch used this device often. She choreographed three dream ballets for the musical Lady in the Dark (1941) (Wilmeth, 2007).

Rasch had an extensive career as a choreographer. However, her twenty years staging and choreographing thirty Broadway musicals, revues, revivals and plays (including the 1927 and 1931 editions of Ziegfeld’s Follies) did little to bring her notoriety in Broadway history.

In contrast, accounts of Rasch’s punitive personality have traveled through the decades. According to author Debra Hickenlooper Sowell, Rasch “had a reputation for being difficult to work with; she was demanding and spoke harshly to her dancers in a vocabulary studded with obscenities” (Sowell, 1998, pp. 100-1).

Rasch’s behavior, however, was not rare in the field of dance. In fact, tyrant choreographers and directors were more the rule rather than the exception, especially in concert dance. Artists such as Rasch often employed a Darwinian, “survival of the fittest” method of dance training. Those dancers that were not physically and emotionally strong enough to stand up to hours of rehearsal and strings of verbal abuse were weaned out. Some performers thrived under such methods.

Like Buddy Bradley, Rasch taught and coached star performers, including film star Jeanette MacDonald.

In an era when male dance directors dominated Broadway, New York producers made an exception for the "Czarina," as she was known, because of her business sense and her grasp of the public pulse. MacDonald enrolled at Rasch's studio in the Steinway Building on West Fifty-seventh Street...While less stalwart pupils were intimidated by the instructor's accented bellow, thumping cane, and scalding sarcasm, Jeanette took instantly to her demands for discipline, stamina, and consistency...

An emancipated European, Rasch believed that the United States offered the greatest promise for democratizing the female body politic. In dance, she insisted, if a woman's body is "lithe and resilient and perfectly controlled," and if she possesses "an abundant vitality," she will project, regardless of her actual social stratum, the manners and mental attitudes Europeans typically associate with aristocratic breeding. MacDonald was an exemplar of this philosophy. She learned from Rasch how to tone down her chorus-girl prance and walk across a stage with stately grace in an American manner, without affectation. Rasch also believed that classical art forms had to be adapted to a New World context. She argued for American ballet and opera geared not to an intellectual elite but to the general populace, in much the same way as baseball and motion pictures have mass appeal. (Turk, 1998, pp. 47-8)

Whatever method Rasch used, her career flourished. Her instinct for the type of dance that would sell tickets coupled with her ballet background resulted in a dance style that was at once technically beautiful and commercially appealing. Rasch’s innovative combination of syncopated steps with ballet put her original stamp on show choreography. Though she rarely received rave reviews from journalists or accolades from historians, her work is noteworthy as a precursor to contemporary styles of dance. Said musical theatre historian, John Kenrick:

As respect for dance rose on Broadway, Rasch became one of the first "dance directors" to be referred to as a "choreographer" …Rasch received equal praise for massive ensembles in The Great Waltz (1934) and intimate routines in Jubilee (1935). She was one of the first to treat dance as a serious element in musical theatre. (2003, "Ziegfeld Follies III")

Then, along came George Balanchine…

George Balanchine was born Georgi Melitonovitch Balanchivadze in St. Petersburg, Russia. He began studying piano at the age of five and ballet at the age of nine. In the summer of 1924, he and three other dancers defected from the Soviet Union, while on a dance tour of Western Europe (George Balanchine Foundation, 2002).

Balanchine and his comrades joined the Ballets Russes, a world renown London ballet company. After several years of performing and choreographing ballets—as well as a wide variety of dances for the Cochran Revues in London, a fateful partnership was proposed.

The young American arts patron Lincoln Kirstein…harbored a dream: To establish a ballet company in America, filled with American dancers and not dependent on repertory from Europe…He met Balanchine after a...1933 performance and outlined his vision. Balanchine was essential to it. Deciding quickly in favor of a new start, Balanchine agreed to come to the United States and arrived in New York in October 1933. "But first, a school," he is famously reported to have said. (George Balanchine Foundation, 2002, p. 2)

Together Kirstein and Balanchine founded the School of American Ballet, which continues to train dancers today and is the feeder school for Balanchine’s company, The New York City Ballet Company.

Balanchine’s immense impact on the world of ballet is well documented in dance history. Less well known are his contributions to Broadway dance. Balanchine got his first musical theatre job on Broadway via his friendship with a Russian composer, who was working on the 1936 edition of Ziegfeld’s Follies (Kristy, 1996). The choreographer for the show was Robert Alton. Balanchine was brought in to choreograph dances for Josephine Baker. According to author Bernard Taper:

At considerable expense the Shuberts had brought Josephine Baker from Paris, and it was Balanchine’s assignment to fashion some dances that would display to advantage her dusky elegance and her talented, world-famous derriere. As much as anybody else, Balanchine admired this derriere of hers, but there was little original he could do for it. It was already, so to speak, institutionalized and not to be tampered with. (1987, p. 178)

Neither the Balanchine numbers nor the show created much of a stir.

Robert Alton choreographed at least thirty-two musicals, revivals and specials [including Anything Goes, Pal Joey (starring Gene Kelly) and three editions of Ziegfeld’s Follies] from 1933 until his death in 1957. He is known for his commitment to showmanship, musicality and high expectations for his professional dancers. Said Alton about musical theatre choreography, “I have exactly six minutes in which to raise the customer out of his seat. If I cannot do it, I am no good” (cited in Long, 2001, p. 16).

Next, Balanchine was hired to choreograph On Your Toes.

Tamara Geva and Ray Bolger, starred in Balanchine’s dream ballet for the show: “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.” Ballerina Tamara Geva, who had defected from Russia with Balanchine, was his first wife. Ray Bolger—best known as the scarecrow in the film, The Wizard of Oz—was a comic, eccentric dancer.

In the ballet, Bolger’s character is in love with the ballerina. He’s in trouble with the mobsters in the scene, who threaten to shoot him if he doesn’t keep dancing. At the end of the dance sequence, Bolger performed a desperate final dance that brought the house down every night. Ray Bolger considered himself an actor who happened to use dance to express his character. Known for his loose-limbed dancing, Bolger often improvised [made up spontaneously in the moment] his movement. He danced from the inside out. In other words, if he was committed to his character and the feelings/story his character needed to express, Bolger felt his movements would reflect those emotions. Balanchine agreed, and ironically, Ray Bolger’s dance at the end of “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” so praised by critics, was improvised at each performance!

Having been exposed to modern dance on the Broadway stage, audiences continued their education in dance “choreography” via Balanchine. With his Broadway adaptation of the title “choreographer”—previously used in programs only for concert dance—Balanchine helped clue both audience members and theatre reviewers into the new importance of dance in Broadway musicals. He focused attention on dance as an expressive vehicle to move the story and a notable contributor to the entirety of the Broadway show.

Before On Your Toes, the playbill credit line for the dancers in musicals had always read, "Dances by _____." Balanchine asked the producer, Wiman, whether his billing might read, "Choreography by George Balanchine." This was an unfamiliar word in the United States in 1936. Wiman said he feared the public would not know what it meant. Balanchine replied that maybe it would intrigue the public to see a new word, and Wiman agreed to make the experiment.

The change in the credit line was the least of Balanchine's musical-comedy innovations. Balanchine was able to rid musical comedy of the the notion that a dance number was a couple of showy soloists backed by a line of high-kicking showgirls; this dreary nonsense he replaced by genuine choreography. To musical comedy, Balanchine brought, it was generally agreed, an elegance, sophistication, and range of reference--all conveyed subtly and with a light touch--such as Broadway had not previously known. (Taper, 1987, p. 180)

However, many ticket holders were not yet ready for this theatre education lesson. On Your Toes may have had more impact on the evolution of Broadway dance than it had on Broadway audiences. In addition to “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue,” the musical contained the “Princess Zenobia Ballet.”

The plot of On Your Toes deals with the backstage life in the ballet world; that was new and “foreign” material on Broadway in the 1930s. Consequently, the audience proved as unprepared as the critics for the dancing—it’s importance to the show itself and its impact on the shows that followed. When the tongue-in-cheek send-up of the ballet Scheherazade, or A Thousand and One Nights, entitled “La Princess Zenobia” was performed in the original production, the audience simply didn’t know how to react. Many missed the point altogether, and a few who didn’t were too polite to laugh outright. (Kislan, 1987, p. 73)

Mark N. Grant, author of The Rise and Fall of the Broadway Musical, credits Balanchine with bringing “advanced dance” to Broadway, but states that most of Balanchine’s choreography did little to forward storyline (2004).

A notable omission in the show is the missing credit for Herbie Harper, who assisted Balanchine. The black choreographer "melded jazz, tap, and ballet in On Your Toes" (Wilmeth, 2007 p. 202).

Balanchine introduced the expressive possibilities of ballet to the Broadway stage at a time when musicals were making a shift from mindless entertainment to vehicles of artistic ideals in theatre. Powerful themes would be sung and danced during the Golden Age of Broadway over the next two decades. The strength, grace and potential for ballet to transport the audience would provide a foundation for emotionally expressive dances that would grip the audience by the heart and pull them on a responsive, kinetic journey.

[Balanchine's] dances in On Your Toes--particularly the memorable "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue"--were the first ever seen in a Broadway musical that were not just interludes but funtioned as an essential, active aspect of the plot. This paved the way for what was done by Agnes de Mille [studied in our next unit] a few years later in Oklahoma! Thus Balanchine began a trend in American musical comedy that helped make it one of the brightest of this country's theatrical forms. (Taper, 1987, p. 180)

The 1939 film version of On Your Toes featured dancers Vera-Ellen and Gene Kelly. Balanchine was credited as “Dance Director.”

Video: “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue”

(2008) From the 1948 movie adaptation of On Your Toes

To the show-going public Balanchine's approach was a refreshing change; to the dancers in his shows it was an absolute liberation. Those performers who were lucky enough to work with him always came away with new insights into their dancing.

"If the rules of Equity permitted," Brooks Atkinson wrote in 1940 in his New York Times review of Cabin in the Sky, "probably the dancers would be glad to pay Mr. Balanchine something for the privilege of appearing under his direction, for he has released them from the bondage of hack dancing and ugliness." (Taper, 1987, p. 181)

Ray Bolger said, “Taking dance direction from Balanchine was one of the highlights of my career. It was hard work, but the results were rewarding” (Fantle & Johnson, 2004, p. 59).

The original On Your Toes ran for 315 performances. A 1954 revival ran for only 64. But, the 1983 revival of On Your Toes, performed before an audience now well-educated to appreciate the complexities of dance choreography—and coming long after Balanchine’s choreographic genius was well-established—ran for 505 performances.

George Balanchine stretched the boundaries of both concert ballet dance and Broadway dance. He was open to change. To ballet, he brought sharp, contemporary movement, stressing visual, theatrical pictures rather than story. I think it could be said that Balanchine's time on Broadway definitely impacted his ballet choreography. To Broadway, Balanchine brought the rigorous training and discipline of the ballet world. George Balanchine used the vocabulary of ballet in innovative ways that opened the eyes of Broadway choreographers to the new possibilities of Broadway dance.

So successful and pervasive did ballet become on Broadway after Balanchine and de Mille [whom we will study in our next unit], that the phenomena just about erased jazz-tap from commercial musicals and put many of its virtuoso performers out of big-time business. Temporarily, American show dancing turned its back on what the adherents of tap called "real American dance." (Kislan, 1987, p. 74)

With the morale of America plummeting alongside the economy, it is little wonder that music took an upbeat turn.

The music of the 1930s was “Swing.” Swing music was characterized by very large bands, fixed, usually written arrangements, and solos by individual musicians in turn instead of group improvisation. This move towards more user-friendly formatting enabled dancers to be more responsive to the new sound of swing music. And musicians enjoyed the renewed call-and-response of swing dancing.

In an effort to build business, nightclubs and dance halls offered specialty nights and dance contests to prospective clientele. In addition, jazz bands began to focus on visual effects to draw customers away from the radio. Band members wore uniforms, lined up in visually pleasing patterns and added movement to their performances. Band leaders whipped their orchestras into a frenzy to challenge dancers, and dancers performed their tricks and gave energy right back to the band.

Duke Ellington talked about band leader/drummer Chick Webb:

As a drummer, Chick had his own ideas about what he wanted to do. Some musicians are dancers, and Chick was. You can dance with a lot of things besides your feet...Chick Webb was a dance-drummer who painted pictures of dances with his drums. Way back, at the Cotton Club, we were always tailoring orchestrations to fit the dances...The reason why Chick Webb had such control, such command of his audiences at the Savoy ballroom, was because he was always in communication with the dancers and felt it the way they did. And that is probably the biggest reason why he could cut all the other bands that went in there. (Ellington, 1973, p. 100)

"Appreciation for particular swing performers caused racial boundaries to be crossed from both sides. White youth constituted the largest proportion of the audience for either black or white swing bands, but African-Americans were willing to cross the line for the right white band” (Stowe, 1996, p. 43)

Appropriation continued as band leaders scrambled to best their competition. Benny Goodman, for example, a child of Jewish immigrants, became known as "the King of Swing" although swing was well-established before Goodman attained his fame. The title had more to do with his commercial success--and perhaps the fact that he was white--than his musical productions. But Goodman earned the respect of white and black musicians alike when he integrated his band in 1936. Though this seems unexceptional today, in the 1930s it was not only an innovative decision, but also a politically explosive one.

It is worthy of note that the creation of a formalized jazz dance style for theatre and film came from a white dancer.

Although Jack Cole was not seen as a major player in terms of Broadway choreography, his impact on dance and Broadway dance in particular, is undeniable. Agnes De Mille [whom we will study next] and Jerome Robbins [next unit] were both fans (Grant, 2004). Cole is widely credited with developing the technique that would later be called “jazz” dance.

Cole danced with modern dance luminaries Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn, and the Humphrey-Weidman dancers (Kislan, 1987). Dissatisfied with St. Denis’ inauthentic representation of Indian dances, Cole studied oriental history, and later “expanded his studies to include the American Indian, the black American, and the Caribbean and South American ethnic heritages” (Kislan, 1987, p. 86).

Cole demonstrated a fervent commitment to research. He traveled and studied dance in many genres in an effort to pay homage to authentic cultural styles: either by emulating them, satirizing them or incorporating them into his own style. Cole may well be the first well known choreographer to utilize what I call a “Personal Fusion” genre of dance. Rather than using a specific genre, Cole took what he liked best about many genres—vernacular [native and homegrown] jazz, Indian dance and modern dance—and fused them into his own Jack Cole jazz.

Video: Jack Cole

(2008)

"Jack Cole developed an entirely personal mode of jazz-ethnic-ballet that prevails as the dominant look of and technique for dancing in today’s musicals, films, nightclub revues, television commercials, and videos…Jack Cole’s style stamped all his work with an unmistakable look that followers claim endures in the choreography of Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Peter Gennaro, and Gower Champion, among others” (Kislan, 1987, p. 84).

Cole jazz dancing is recognizable by its syncopated movement, use of plié [bending the knees to lower body towards the ground] and contrast between smooth, controlled movements, sensual movements and sharp, quick and isolated movements.

Video: “What is Jazz?”

(2007) Chita Rivera and Jack Cole dance in “Beale Street Blues.”

“Sing, Sing, Sing” was one of the biggest swing hits of the 30s, and it was also the most well-known of Jack Cole’s dances. All five of our jazz dance characteristics are represented in the dance.

Video: "Sing, Sing, Sing"

(2008) "Sing, Sing, Sing" - danced by Ron Field, Jim Hutchenson, Tom Osteen and Jack Cole

Cole was another in a long line of authoritarian choreographers. Dancers sublimated themselves for their art, putting up with abusive and demeaning treatment from Cole, and forgiving all for the opportunity to work with a genius. Many dancers and choreographers believed that the Jack Cole process—including the abuse—was necessary to achieve the Jack Cole result of absolute control of the body.

In a 1968 Dance Magazine interview Jack Cole talked about dancers: “Sometimes you have to slap them. Sometimes you have to kiss them. It isn’t like painting or writing or something that can be done in solitude. The trouble with choreography is you have to get the person out of the way before you can bring out the dancer” (cited in Kislan, 1987, p. 86). One of Cole's most famous prodigies was Gwen Verdon.

Gwen Verdon, one of the most well-known Broadway dancers in history, was Jack Cole’s lead dancer and assistant for many years.

Video: DO40 Tribute to Gwen Verdon

(2008) Verdon’s dancing is discussed and shown.

Verdon would soon find another genius/tyrant choreographer with whom she would spend many years: Bob Fosse. We will continue our look at Verdon’s intertwined personal life and career when we discuss Fosse in Unit 7.

Harsh realities continued to visit Americans. Broadway musicals became bolder in their political commentary. Interestingly, it was the American government that sponsored one of the most controversial musicals of the decade.

As part of his election campaign platform, Theodore Roosevelt promised Americans a “New Deal” that would address some of the key issues of the Depression, including banking regulations and aid and the creation of new employment opportunities. The Federal Theatre Project was “a nationwide producing organization that employed thousands within a network of smaller theater units that would put on all manner of plays and musicals for the public at popular prices. It was an unprecedented effort, eventually sponsoring almost twelve hundred productions for an audience of more than 30 million—one quarter of the United States population” (Maslon, 2004, p. 172).

The Document below is a wonderful “State of American Theatre” spotlight. This document is much too hard to read in its entirety, so I won’t make you strain your eyes. But take a look, it’s amazing to see how people were so passionate about the arts years ago.

Hallie Flanagan - Director of Federal Theatre - "Is This the Time and Place?" - Delivered October 8, 1935, Washington, D. C. - First Meeting of Regional Directors-Federal Theatre Project

Links to an external site.

In our study of the Federal Theatre Project, it is important to understand the heated dynamic that unions and attempts to unionize brought to the American workplace. Tactics for establishing or breaking unions were far from civilized. Disputes often resulted in violence and retaliatory “accidents” in the workplace. Workers striving to unionize were seen as communist and un-American (Knapp, 2005).

Into the storm of this emotion entered The Cradle Will Rock, a pro-union musical produced by the Federal Theatre Project (FTP). Although there is no mention of dancing in this musical, the show must be mentioned for its contribution to the American musical.

Plot: Steelworkers who have built the country must sell out to do whatever it takes to earn a buck from those in power, making them all prostitutes. A labor organizer leads them against their oppressive employers to form a union.

The Cradle Will Rock is most well-known for the fact that it was closed down by its own producer, the FTP. The doors of the Windsor Theatre were locked on opening night. The FTP cancelled the show

An injunction was put on its actors. Director Orson Welles booked the small Venice Theatre Off Broadway and marched the opening night audience to it, where the musical was performed without scenery or costumes with the cast performing from their seats in the audience and Blitzein [who authored both the book and songs] playing on the piano. (Hischak, 2008, p. 173)

The performance of the show from theater seats displayed a clever and courageous way of getting around the injunction, which forbade the actors from appearing on stage.

The Cradle Will Rock brought musicals into a real and gritty world that did not allow the audience to escape the grim realities of the story and their connection to current issues. Both the content of The Cradle Will Rock and the publicity derived from the controversial opening--and subsequent bare stage performances--paved the way for more political messages and protests on the Great White Way.

The FTP produced mainly plays. The few musicals funded by the FTP included a one evening special featuring Charles Weidman’s choreography and Swing Mikado (1938), a modernized, black version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado.

The Federal Theatre Project had established a Negro Unit. A celebrated black actress, Rose McClendon, was asked to offer her opinions as to how the leadership should be set up. She replied that the Negro Unit should have a white leader from the world of theatre. Her feeling was that a white leader would have more experience than a black one. Her sentiments marked one side of a debate among black performers and creative staff. Some felt that it was important that a black leader be appointed. These people argued that blacks had been active in all aspects of theatre for decades, and a black leader would best represent black interests. Others felt that if a white leader was not appointed, the Negro Unit would be largely ignored (Woll, 1989). In the end, both sides had their way: McClendon was named co-director along with a friend, John Houseman, whom she recommended for the post (Sklaroff, 2009).

The Swing Mikado made many updates to the Gilbert and Sullivan original. The musical’s setting was changed to the South Sea Islands, and some of the music was updated to utilize the latest American swing rhythms (Woll, 1989). The show was such a hit when it played in Chicago, it broke all of FTP’s sales records. Independent producers tried various means of obtaining the show to bring it to New York—from “buying” it from the government, to bribing the cast with high salaries.

Eventually, two versions of the show opened. The FTP-sponsored show, The Swing Mikado opened on March 1, 1939, and its competition, The Hot Mikado, opened three weeks later. The Hot Mikado starred Bill Robinson and made greater use of swing music and dance. The New York version of Swing Mikado only occasionally interjected swing music and dance into the Gilbert and Sullivan score (Woll, 1989). The FTP version was also limited in its casting. Rules for federal aid stated that the cast had to be made up of a majority of unemployed actors. “Critics reviewed both Mikado’s and gave the nod to the ‘hot’ version” (Woll, 1989, p. 180).

When legislators found out that the FTP had refused public offers to buy the show, “Congress mandated that the government Mikado be turned over to private investors as soon as a bona fide offer was made” (Woll, 1989, p. 183). Two investors who had originally battled to obtain rights for the show bought the FTP version at a low price and moved it across the street from Hot Mikado. Both shows closed shortly after. Swing Mikado is notable in musical theatre history for starting a new trend in black musical theatre, taking a classic and “swinging” it into a modern, black show. The adaptation of white shows to black would be used more in the future.

In addition to promoting black theatre by creating The Negro Unit, the FTP…

…supported a new integration in theatrical life. The creative process, which in the 1920s had slowly been removed from black control, now brought whites and blacks together in all aspects of the actual planning, from costume and scenic design to lighting and electrical work. The advances were apparent onstage as well, for black performers were no longer limited to roles as menials or to roles specifically designed for black characters. Interracial casting became commonplace as the FTP program flowered, and black actors performed in dramas, comedies, and musicals. (Woll, 1989, p. 212)

Although official policy encouraged integration in all divisions of the FTP, the actual process was not always a smooth one. Some individuals occasionally defied directives. The Daily Worker featured a stream of articles during 1937 that revealed that black actors and backstage technicians were still facing prejudice within the FTP. Black members noted the use of racial epithets, and some found that they were discriminated against in casting decisions. The source of the stories might be questioned, but it is noteworthy that director [of the FTP, Hallie] Flanagan saved these articles in her scrapbooks…Follow-up articles often revealed that offenders were either fired or forced to resign. Although prejudice continued to exist in the ranks of the FTP, the organization generally acted upon the complaint of black participants within a short period of time. In this fashion, Flanagan forcefully indicated that prejudice would not be tolerated within the Federal Theatre Project. As a result, one of the FTP’s major legacies, according to Langston Hughes and other critics, was the eventual breakdown of segregation onstage and behind the scenes as well:

With few previous exceptions, it was Federal Theater that had dared to cast Negro actors in non-Negro roles, not only on Broadway, but in its units elsewhere as well. The Federal Theater broke down not only the old taboos against colored Americans as backstage technicians, but the bars against colored actors playing other than racial roles. (Woll, 1989, p. 213)

David Dubinsky, the powerful head of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union [ILGWU] in the 1930s, was devoted to the betterment of its members, whose numbers had tripled since the New Deal was instituted…One of his ideas was a Cultural Division, which made “good union members aware of the truth that man does not live by bread alone” (Maslon, 2004, p. 169). The largely immigrant membership was soon being offered lessons in tap dancing, mandolin playing, and elocution. In the mid-1930s, the Division had the idea of creating a musical revue by and for the members of the ILGWU. They hired a former architect turned songwriter, Harold Rome, to write it. Rehearsals for most Broadway musicals in 1937 usually involved four weeks in town, plus two on the road, but there was nothing usual about Pins and Needles.

Rome rehearsed his cast—assembled from the ranks of stitchers, seamstresses, and cutters—after their work shift three hours a night, three nights a week, over the course of an entire year. The show opened two days after Thanksgiving in 1937, and it took some time before New York theatergoers heard about it—it played only on weekends, as the cast needed to get to bed early to rest up for their day jobs. (Maslon, 2004, p. 169)

Rome’s score set the tone for the whole show, which was not really a condemnation of the world’s evil, but rather a lighthearted look at young people in a changing society in the middle of America’s most politically engaged city. The opening number let the audience know where the hearts of these young workers lay. Here is Rose Marie Jun, from the 1962 revival cast of Pins and Needles singing the opening song:

Rose Marie Jun: "Sing Me a Song With Social Significance"

(2010)

David Dubinsky spoke about his workers’ performances:

With zest and disarming frankness, their songs and skits punctured economic platitudes, ridiculed political insincerity, satirized the seamier side of American life, and poked fun at overseas dictators. At the same time, with wonderful freshness, they sang of pay envelopes and picket lines, of romance in the shop and Sundays in the park. All of this they did with the enthusiasm and attractive amateurishness that drew the high and mighty to sit in their small theater among ILGWU members and to cheer performance after performance. (Cited in Maslon, 2004, p. 170)

Michael Denning, Professor of American Studies at Yale University, and the Director of the Initiative on Labor and Culture, states: “The success of Pins and Needles lay in its union of class, ethnic, and feminist energies, in the way it sang for young Jewish and Italian working-class women of the garment trades” (1998, p. 306). Denning goes on to say that Pins and Needles was never meant to be anti-Communist or feminist, but the fact that the majority of the cast was women and the content pro-union gave the show an edge of both.

The feminism of Pins and Needles was in part a result of the fact that…it was not a play, scripted in advance and then performed. The songs and sketches of the revue were interchangeable, and they were written and rewritten, added and dropped, throughout the year and a half of rehearsals and the three years of performances…As the satires of international politics came and went, the labor feminism of the working women’s songs became the backbone of the show. (Denning, 1998, p. 306)

However, success allowed for modifications in the show that did not necessarily unify the cast. Political and ethnic prejudice played out behind the scenes.

The show’s impresario, Louis Schaffer, was bitterly anti-Communist…Several cast members later claimed that if Schaffer learned someone was a Communist, he would fire them; both the first director, Charles Friedman, and one of the stars, Millie Weitz, were pushed out for their Communist politics…Moreover, Louis Schaffer was as wary of the casts’ accents as of their radical politics: "eventually Schaffer weeded out those pople with thick Jewish accents," cast member Al Levy recalled. Human Goldstein was asked to change his name by the show’s public relations man, and he became Hy Gardner; and Schaffer tried to persuade both Rubinstein and Harary [two of the show’s stars] to get nose jobs…Finally, Pins and Needles never escaped the labor relations of the culture industry itself. "I was a shop-worker and getting into Pins and Needles was like being freed from slavery," Joe Alfasa recalled. But the world of Broadway was itself a workplace, and there were conflicts between the Labor Stage and Actors’ Equity over the status of these "amateur" peformers…The first company were all amateurs; subsequent companies included more and more semiprofessionals. (Denning, 1998, pp. 307-8)

Among these “semiprofessionals” were Katherine Dunham and her dance troupe.

Like the other modern dance choreographers that we discussed earlier, Katherine Dunham’s career included both concert dance and Broadway musical choreography and performance. According to author Susan Manning, Dunham successfully used her Broadway dance jobs to finance her less lucrative evenings of concert dance (2005).

Dunham’s choreography reflected the richness and diversity of her extraordinary background. In the video, Dunham is discussed in terms of her contributions to modern dance, however, all of the clips of her choreography are Broadway stage and film performances. Dunham blended her innovative dance vocabulary with a strong awareness of theatricality. The worlds of concert dance and theatre dance were intertwined in Dunham's revolutionary choreography.

A producer for the Labor Stage saw a company performance in Chicago and hired Dunham as the dance director for the 1940 edition of Pins and Needles. Dunham brought most of her company with her, and they performed company repertory (Manning, 2005).

Interestingly, Dunham is not credited for Pins and Needles in any chronicle of American musical theatre that I could find, including some of the most comprehensive inventories available:

· Broadway: Its History, People, and Places: An Encyclopedia by Ken Bloom

· Broadway Musicals, Show by Show by Stanley Green & Kay Green

· The Cambridge Guide to American Theatre by Don B. Wilmeth

· American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle by Gerald Martin Bordman

· ibdb.com: the internet datatbase for Broadway shows

It is only in cultural studies of black Americans and in Dunham’s own memoirs that she is given credit for her contributions to the show.

While choreographing for and performing in Pins and Needles, Dunham’s company performed Sunday concert revues at the same theatre (Windsor Theatre). One revue was called Tropics and Le Jazz Hot: From Haiti to Harlem.

"With L'Ag'Ya and Tropics and Le Jazz Hot: From Haiti to Harlem, Dunham revealed her magical mix of dance and theater -- the essence of 'the Dunham touch' --a savvy combination of authentic Caribbean dance and rhythms with the heady spice of American showbiz. Genuine folk material was presented with lavish costumes, plush settings, and the orchestral arrangements based on Caribbean rhythms and folk music. Dancers moved through fantastical tropical paradises or artistically designed juke-joints, while a loose storyline held together a succession of diverse dances (Sommer, n.d., “Katherine Dunham”).

The “revue” ran for several weeks and received a mix of reactions. In her essay, “Watching Dunham’s Dances,” Susan Manning discusses the challenges of the black choreographer: If a black choreographer choreographs with an “Africanist” style, her dance is considered a reproduction of folk dance, not as the choreography of an artist. If she choreographs in a “white” style she is seen as inauthentic and “derivative” and is accused of using movement that is “alien” to black dancers (2005).

If Dunham’s repertory was diverse, it was also coherent. "Tropics and le Jazz Hot: From Haiti to Harlem" incorporated dances from the West Indies as well as from Cuba and Mexico in its “Tropics” section, while the "Le Jazz Hot" section featured early black American social dances, such as the Juba, Cake Walk, Ballin' the Jack, and Strut. The sequencing of dances, the theatrical journey from the tropics to urban black America implied--in the most entertaining terms--the realities of cultural connections through time. (Sommer, n.d., “Katherine Dunham”)

In 1940, Dunham and her company appeared in the black Broadway musical, Cabin in the Sky, staged by George Balanchine. Dunham played the sultry siren, Georgia Brown--a character related to Dunham's other seductress, "Woman with a Cigar," from her solo "Shore Excursion" in Tropics.

Katherine Dunham used her celebrity to advocate for civil rights for African Americans. While touring with her company, she protested segregated theatre seating.

Sometimes there were outrageous confrontations, such as the story company members tell about how Dunham, in a segregated theater in the South, turned around and showed her rear end to the audience, saying, ‘Until people like me can sit with people like you,’ the company could not and would not perform. (DeFrantz, 2002, p. 342)

Dunham’s reputation as a luminous modern/African dance revolutionary far exceeds her notoriety on Broadway. However, she did contribute to the diverse offering of dance genres on Broadway, and her journey further illustrates black/white issues on the Great White Way.

“Fighting segregation in hotels, restaurants and theaters, she filed lawsuits and made public condemnations. In Hollywood, she refused to sign a lucrative studio contract when the producer said she would have to replace some of her darker-skinned company members” (Sommer, n.d., “Katherine Dunham”).

With concert dance choreographers such as Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, Katherine Dunham and George Balanchine came an influx of professionally trained ballet and modern dancers to the Broadway stage (Wilmeth, 2007). Then, Jack Cole added numbers of elite, newly-trained jazz dancers to the mix. After that, with the possible exception of the Rockettes, tap dancing and tap dancers plummeted in popularity, and interest in them would not return until the 1970s (Wilmeth, 2007).