Broadway Video Analysis
EK17
WeeklsContenttoread1.docxEarly American Stage Dance
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Dance on the American stage dates back to colonial times. “The Archers (1796), considered by some scholars to be the earliest example of American musical comedy, featured not only songs but dance numbers described in contemporaneous accounts as hornpipe, an Anglo-Irish step-dance ancestor of tap dancing" (Grant, 2004, p. 215). The hornpipe was a dance with quick and rhythmic footwork. Wearing hard-soled shoes, the hornpipe dancer clicked and shuffled his heels and toes across the floor, maintaining an erect body posture and a consistent bounce on the balls of the feet. Today’s Irish step-dancers still perform this dance.
Unfortunately, there are few detailed accountings of early stage dance. The lack of details about dance in reviews and other documentation of early musical offerings tells us about the role dance played in stage shows. [In other words, the dance was not important enough to discuss beyond a small mention.]
Early American stage dancing could best be described as diversionary entertainment. Variety revues (later called vaudeville) were the most common musical offering. Individual acts of all kinds were shuffled together without a story or themed through-line. Tours traveled around the country from town to town. The content of the stage dance depended on the available performers' talents.
Circus-type acts, such as rope dancing and tumbling, and social dances (e.g. the hornpipe and "the drunken peasant") were also incorporated between the scenes of operas and shows and commonly had no relationship to the story of the show. According to Richard Kislan, a dance historian, the fact that dances were seen regularly in shows attests to the audience’s enjoyment of them (1987). In other words, if the audience didn't like the dances, managers would have eliminated them. Both black and white performers employed versions of these dances, but performed them in separate shows.
Dance Steps and Styles
Although there were many circus-type variety performances, such as tight rope walking and acrobatics, most formalized group dances on stage were still borrowed from the stages and royal courts of Europe. In addition to ballet dances, highland flings, allemandes, waltzes, minuets and reels—the preferred social dances of the time--were the group dances viewed by audiences. [Picture dances in which pairs of dancers walked and swirled in various patterns of circles and squares.]
The operetta [a comic opera in which some dialogue is used] and its accompanying traditions in ballet and pantomime represented the European ancestry of the American musical. European life served as a touchstone for Americans (Knapp, 2005). Characteristics of Paris, Vienna and London served as models to be imitated or parodied.
English musicals, such as H.M.S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance contributed a basic format for musical comedy in America. From them, the American musical learned its use of political satire and the use of plot to encourage songs.
English musicals also helped Americans see the newly developed differences between the two countries. American music was being born in minstrelsy and spirituals, American political issues were different from those of Europe and Americans were less stiffly traditional. The challenges of American life forced its people to take a fresh look at traditional practices and develop new ways to live. This assessment was reflected in American musical parodies of stiff English life and class distinctions (Knapp, 2005).
Ballet
Ballet dance sequences in operas pre-date American history. Dance historians generally agree that The Black Crook (1866) was the first American musical (i.e. not opera) to feature a dance chorus [a group of performers who provide background dancing in a show.]
[For larger view, right click and select View Image]
The Black Crook (1866)
A timely fire at New York's Academy of Music forced the cancellation of a French ballet company's show. The show's American producers scrambled to save their investment, pitching an idea to producer William Wheatley, who was about to premiere his own musical. History was made when approximately one hundred ballet dancers in pink tights and chiffon costumes performed in dances inserted into the show. The dances and songs were not related to the original musical, but audiences very much appreciated the work of the scantily-clad chorus line.
“ The Black Crook was the first smash hit musical: it made its producers and writers rich, and it played off and on for the rest of the nineteenth century. Its elaborate ballet numbers with fairyland motifs crossed with risqué suggestion were devised by the French troop's Italian ballet master, David Costa, who could fairly be called America's first notable stage-musical choreographer” (Grant, 2004, page 216).
The dancing chorus—comprised of teenage ballerinas--created much controversy. Reaction was mixed. The Tribune reported, “Children cry for it. Countrymen coming to town clamor for it, and will not be comforted unless they see it” (cited in Twain & Meltzer, 1960, p. 85). An 1867 letter by Mark Twain to the San Francisco Alta California newspaper illuminates the societal impact of The Black Crook:
Reading: Mark Twain review of The Black Crook
Links to an external site.
[You can stop reading when you get to “The Bewitching New Fashions.”]
Despite Twain’s moral outrage—and he was certainly not the only offended party—audiences of men and women flocked to see the musical. In fact, the continuous public protests against the musical—which always gave details about the barely dressed women of the chorus—ensured the success of the show! The controversial attire of the dancers did little to prevent women from attending. Wheatley’s attention to lavish scene design and lighting gave female audience members a place to avert their eyes during the dances. According to Marlis Schweitzer, an author and Assistant Professor of Theatre Studies, female attendance at The Black Crook—whether to view scenery or peek at the dancers—gave tacit approval to future producers for the continued exploitation of females as objects (2009).
Throughout history, dance would consistently push the boundaries of sexuality and American identity. With its French ballet and German operetta, The Black Crook’s European roots lent sophistication to the production, allowing audiences to forgive the blatant display of the feminine body as art.
Raymond Knapp, author of The American Musical and the Formation of National Identity, gives additional insight into the lasting legacy of The Black Crook:
First and foremost--considering the importance of commerce to the future history of the American musical—its signal achievement was what we would now call its “bottom line”: its unquestioned and lasting commercial success. The Black Crook went on to enjoy a then-phenomenon 474 performances, and thus became a shining emblem of the potential for commercial success in American musical theater, widely imitated and often revived in the following decades. (2005, p. 23)
Knapp goes on to say that it is unlikely that The Black Crook was the first American musical. It’s more likely that The Black Crook was the first musical to blend story, music, dance and scenery in a manner that garnered commercial success. It was this distinct combination of elements that made The Black Crook the first model for future American musicals (2005).
We’re talking a great deal about this musical because it really demonstrates the relationship of dance entertainment to audience response, societal issues and commercialism. The presence of barely-clad dancers in The Black Crook drew audiences despite the conservative moral code of the time. Ticket purchases showed the discrepancy between this public moral standard and the individual desires of audience members.
Role of Dance
The role of dance was very much evidenced in the performance of the stars of the time. Variety and innovation were keys to the success of performers on the vaudeville stage who almost always created their own acts. Without the technology and special effects that audiences enjoy today, the ability of an act to “stop the show”—a phrase that connotes an audience’s literally jumping to its feet and applauding, making it impossible for the show to go on until the crowd quiets—relied on the invention and “pizzazz” of the performer creating it. The word “variety” did not apply only to the mixture of acts in a show; it also spoke of the wide spectrum of skills displayed by individual performers vying to keep their acts in the spotlight. Dancers in vaudeville used skill, tricks, personality and sexuality to provide provocative entertainment for their usually all-male audience.
In order to provide context for the impact of stage dancing on audiences of the 19th century, this week, you will do a "Dance Video Analysis" of two videos. The first shows a reenactment of a Quadrille, one of the most popular social dances of the 1890s.
The second film is an original 1903 Mutoscope film of an 1897 performance by the Franchonetti sisters, a vaudeville dance act.
