Dance in Musical Theatre: A History of the Body in Movement

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From Oklahoma! to West Side Story, Once to Hamilton, dance remains one of the most important and key factors in musical theatre. Through the invention of integrated song and dance in the 'dream ballets' of Agnes De Mille through to the contemporary movement of John Tiffany, via the roles of Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse, the history of the body in movement is one that begs study and appreciation. Dance in Musical Theatre offers guidelines in how to read this movement by analysing it in terms of composition and movement vocabulary whilst simultaneously situating it both historically and critically. Bringing together musical theatre and dance scholars, choreographers and practitioners, this edited collection highlights musical theatre case studies that employ dance in a dramaturgically essential manner, tracking the emergence of the dancer as a key figure in the genre, and connecting past and present choreographers. Through a selection of essays, divided by concept, this book conceptualizes the function of dance in musical theatre in multiple ways: how it functions diegetically as a part of the story or non-diegetically as an amplification of emotion, as well as how the dancing body works to reveal character psychology by expressing an unspoken aspect of the libretto, embodying emotions or ideas through metaphor or abstraction. This book makes dance language accessible for instructors, students, and musical theatre enthusiasts, providing the tools to critically engage with the work of important choreographers from the beginning of the twentieth century to today. It acknowledges milestones of musical theatre dance history, whilst also explaining in clear, yet critical terms, how the legacies of previous choreographers are saluted in homage today, while also problematizing the genre in terms of current social, cultural, and political issues.

Author Bio

Dustyn Martincich is an Associate Professor of Theatre and Dance at Bucknell University. Her research interests involve investigating narrative, collaborative, and interdisciplinary possibilities in theatre and dance performance and musical theatre dance studies that focuses on the work of the ensemble. She has movement directed, choreographed, and performed for concert dance and theatrical stages. She has been recently published in Studies in Musical Theatre, and in edited collections like Gender Sex, and Sexuality in Musical Theatre (edited by Kelly Kessler), Dueling Grounds: Revolution and Revelation in the Musical Hamilton (edited by Paul Laird and Mary Jo Lodge), and Toni Morrison: Forty Years in The Clearing (edited by Carmen Gillespie). Phoebe Rumsey is a Senior Lecturer in Musical Theatre and Course Leader of the BA (Hons) Musical Theater degree at the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom. She received her PhD from The Graduate Center, CUNY, and holds an MA in Performance Studies from NYU, an MA in Theatre from UNLV, and a BFA in Contemporary Dance from Simon Fraser University. A scholar and practitioner, her research has been published in The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Politics, Studies in Musical Theatre, The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical and Reframing The Musical: Race, Culture, and Identity (Palgrave). She is the author of Embodied Nostalgia: Social Dance, Communities and the Choreographing of Musical Theatre forthcoming from Routledge. Along with her engagement in academic studies Dr. Rumsey has worked extensively as a performer and choreographer. Benae Beamon is a scholar and artist. Her scholarship focuses on religion, ethics, and culture, specifically black cultural expressions as they intersect with ritual and reflect moral imagination. Her work has been published in a few anthologies, including Queering Spirituality and Community in the Deep South and Silhouettes of the Soul: meditations on Fashion, Religion, and Subjectivity. As a tap dancer and performance artist, Benae examines the extraordinary and spectacular in the everyday, focusing on the way that the mundane can be sacred ritual. She has premiered work at various venues, like the Hudgens Center for Arts & Learning and ICA VCU. She holds a B.A. from Colgate University, an M.A. in Religion from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Social Ethics from Boston University. Bud Coleman is the Roe Green Professor of Theatre and Associate Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder. A former dancer with Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, Fort Worth Ballet, and Ballet Austin, Dr. Coleman has directed and choreographed many musicals and operas. In 2008, he directed and choreographed the musical Company in Vladivostok, Russia, was selected to be a 2009-10 Fulbright Lecturer in Japan, and staged the Thai premiere of Fiddler on the Roof in Bangkok in 2017. Publications include Women in American Musical Theatre and Backstage Pass: A Survey of American Musical Theatre (with Pamyla Stiehl),and numerous articles. Tome Cousin is a Full Professor of Dance in the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University. He received his MFA in New Media Art and Performance from LIU, and his BA in Choreography / Dance History from PPU. He is a childhood discovery of Geoffrey Holder and has appeared on Broadway, Off Broadway, national and international tours, tv, and film. His dance credits include the Physical Theater Project, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, Martha Clarke, Meredith Monk, and Mabou Mines. For nine seasons he appeared as Ragdoll Tome on Mister Rogers Neighborhood. He is the author of The Total Theater Artist and New Media Performance, and the Franklin-Project-Interviews-Non-Traditional-Performance and serves as an artistic supervisor for the Tony Award winning director Susan Stroman. He has become a leading voice in the conversation of theatrical intimacy education and choreography. Joanna Dee Das is an Associate Professor in the Performing Arts Department at Washington University in St. Louis and an affiliate of the Program in American Culture Studies. She is the author of the award-winning Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora (Oxford 2017). With Ryan Donovan, she co-edited the special issue Dance in Musical Theatre for Studies in Musical Theatre. She has also published articles in Journal of Urban History, Dance Research Journal, Theatre History Studies, TDR, and ARTS, as well as book chapters in The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical, The Routledge Companion to Musical Theatre, and A Critical Companion to the American Stage Musical. Ramn Flowers is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Dance in the Jordan College of the Arts, at Butler University. He began his formal dance training on scholarship at the School for the Pennsylvania Ballet, and later attended the School of American Ballet. He was the first male African-American dancer to join the Pennsylvania Ballet Company. He moved to Europe as a principal ballet dancer with Maurice Bjart, William Forsythe, and Nacho Duato. He returned to North America to dance with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. He was also featured in several Broadway shows, national Broadway tours, film, TV, and national TV commercials. During his time away from Butler University, he teaches ballet, and Musical Theater Jazz at the American Dance Festival at Duke University. He received his BA in French from The City College of New York, CUNY, and his MFA in Dance from The University of Iowa. Mijiang M-Jay He is a Chinese actor, director, choreographer, and musical theater educator. An accomplished triple-threat performer, M-Jay joined the Chinese national production of Cats in 2012 and 2013. While continuing to perform, M-Jay added professional directing and choreography credits to his resume. As an assistant choreographer, He joined Neverland: Peter Pan with Broadway Asia and China Broadway Entertainment, as well as productions of Murder Ballad and Fosse. M-Jay created the original Chinese translation of 42nd Street, which premiered at the Beijing Dance Academy, Chinas premier music theatre training program. M-Jay was a visiting professor and director at the Beijing Dance Academy, teaching jazz dance, music theatre history, and musical theatre techniques. He also developed the musical theatre dance curriculum for the Communication University of China musical theatre program. He received an M.A. in Theatre at Binghamton University, M.A. in Dance Studies from Beijing Dance Academy, M.M. from Carthage College, and a B.A. in Music Education from Hunan Normal University. Michael D. Jablonski is an Assistant Professor of Musical Theatre and Program Coordinator for the BFA Music Theatre program at Brenau University with previous academic appointments at Elon University and Florida State University. Michael serves as an Assistant Faculty member of Theatrical Intimacy Education with a focused research in elevating/evolving the consent-based practice in the dance studio/performance. As a professional actor Michael performed in 3 Broadway productions, 8 National tours and many prestigious theatres throughout the world performing in 50 states and 20 different countries during his career. He is an award-winning Director and Choreographer with credits that include Beautiful, Urinetown, Fully Committed, Footloose, Fame, Edges, Mamma Mia, Grease, The Producers, Hello Dolly, Eurydice and multiple productions of West Side Story. Michael holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Dance from SUNY at Buffalo and a Master of Fine Arts in Directing from Florida State University. Nathan James is the Managing Director or The Dang Academy and former Director of HE Programmes at the Urdang Academy, London. A former dancer, he has sailed the high seas for Celebrity and Princess Cruise Lines, worked in several regional productions and appeared in the Broadway revival production of 42nd Street in Stuttgart, Germany. He is an international dance adjudicator for several organisations, an examiner for the ISTD, and has recently created a graded examination syllabus for young performers in Musical Theatre training. He was awarded his MA in Professional Practice from Middlesex University and a PhD in Dance from the University of Roehampton. Ariel Nereson is an associate professor of dance studies and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. She is the author of Democracy Moving: Bill T. Jones, Contemporary American Performance, and the Racial Past (University of Michigan Press, 2022), as well as numerous essays about movement-based performance, race, and embodiment in the United States. Her research has been recognized with the Gerald Kahan Scholars Prize from the American Society for Theatre Research and, most recently, the Robert A. Schanke Theatre Research Award from the Mid-America Theatre Conference. She is also a practicing choreographer and dramaturg. Adrienne Gibbons Oehlers is currently a PhD Theatre Candidate at The Ohio State University and a recipient of the AAUW American Fellowship for 2022-23. Her research interests are centered on musical theatre and ensemble work, focusing on unison, community, and constructions of gender and race. Her interest in ensembles stems from her professional experience in musical theatre, appearing in numerous regional theatres, National and European tours, as a Radio City Rockette, and on Broadway in the original cast of The Producers. Her work has been published in Studies in Mu