Broadway's hits and misses. (Dance Theater).DANCE MAGAZINE AND THE MODERN MUSICAL--in the guise of Show Boat--were born in the same year, 1927. And neither has stopped evolving. Here's a quick birthday retrospective of moments large and small in the history of dance in the theater, largely cribbed from Gene Brown's 1997 Macmillan book, Show Time: A Chronology of Broadway and the Theatre From Its Beginnings to the Present. 1928: Agnes de Mille Noun 1. Agnes de Mille - United States dancer and choreographer who introduced formal dance to a wide audience (1905-1993) Agnes George de Mille, de Mille , 22, makes her New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of recital debut; Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, 50, makes his Broadway debut. 1929: Jeanette MacDonald and Archie Leach, a chores boy who will soon be known as Cary Grant Noun 1. Cary Grant - United States actor (born in England) who was the elegant leading man in many films (1904-1986) Grant , dance a fandango fandango (făndăng`gō), ancient Spanish dance, probably of Moorish origin, that came into Europe in the 17th cent. It is in triple time and is danced by a single couple to the accompaniment of castanets, guitar, and songs sung by the in Boom Boom. 1932: Fred Astaire dances on Broadway for the last time, in Gay Divorce. 1935: Ray Bolger improvises a tap dance to calm the edgy Life Begins at 8:40 audience while smoke wafts into the theater. 1936: George Balanchine makes his Broadway debut as a choreographer with the Ziegfeld Follies; Josephine Baker is in the cast. 1937: Balanchine creates Broadway's first dream ballet for Babes in Arms. 1938: Gene Kelly makes his Broadway debut in the chorus of Leave It to Me, but Mary Martin makes a bigger splash, with "My Heart Belongs to Daddy." 1939: Ann Miller is forced by Boston censors to take the bumps out of her dance routine in George White's Scandals George White's Scandals were a long-running string of Broadway revues produced by George White that ran from 1911-1939, modelled after the Ziegfeld Follies. The "Scandals" launched the careers of many entertainers, including W.C. . 1940: Katherine Dunham dances in and co-choreographs (with George Balanchine) Cabin in the Sky Cabin in the Sky is an American Broadway musical which opened in 1940. A motion picture based on the musical was produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and released in 1943. . 1941: Gene Kelly gets his only credit as a Broadway choreographer with Best Foot Forward--his first attempt, Two Weeks With Pay, closed out of town the year before. 1943: Agnes de Mille's dances for Oklahoma! change the rules for staging musicals, and scalpers get $12 for the $4.40 seats. 1944: Jerome Robbins's hit ballet, Fancy Free, becomes the hit musical On the Town, Broadway's first dance-driven show. 1945: Chorus dancers get a raise, to $50 a week. 1946: Pearl Bailey joins the tap-dancing Nicholas Brothers in the cast of St. Louis Woman St. Louis Woman is a musical by Harold Arlen (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) based upon the novel God Sends Sunday by African-American writer Arna Bontemps. . 1947: The Tony Awards are invented, and two choreographers snag prizes: Agnes de Mille for the dances in Brigadoon, and Michael Kidd for Finian's Rainbow. 1948: Gower Champion choreographs his first Broadway musical, Small Wonder. 1950: In Alive and Kicking alive and vigorously active. See also: kicking , Gwen Verdon, in her Broadway debut, dances the choreography of Jack Cole. 1951: Jerome Robbins turns Uncle Tom's Cabin Uncle Tom’s Cabin highly effective, sentimental Abolitionist novel. [Am. Lit.: Jameson, 513] See : Antislavery into a Thai dance spectacle in The King and I. 1954: Bob Fosse makes his Broadway debut as a choreographer with The Pajama Game, and dancing in the chorus are Peter Gennaro and Shirley MacLaine. 1957: Jerome Robbins directs and choreographs the first through-danced musical, West Side Story, and Grover Dale is a Jet. 1959: Alvin Ailey does the choreography for a touring revival of Carmen Carmen throws over lover for another. [Fr. Lit.: Carmen; Fr. Opera: Bizet, Carmen, Westerman, 189–190] See : Faithlessness Carmen the cards repeatedly spell her death. [Fr. Jones, Oscar Hammerstein's 1943 update of Bizet's Carmen. (Eugene Loring did the original.) 1961: Michael Bennett dances in the chorus of Subways Are for Sleeping. 1964: A dancer falls into the orchestra pit during the famously brief run of Stephen Sondheim's Anyone Can Whistle. 1966: Harold Prince's production of Cabaret opens the door for the concept musical, with Ron Field staging the dances at the Kit Kat Klub. 1969: Ben Vereen, an aspiring singer-dancer-actor, gets his break as a replacement in Hair--in three years, Bob Fosse will star him in Pippin Pippin. For Frankish rulers thus named, use Pepin. A multimedia game and Internet machine from Apple that used the PowerPC architecture and a limited version of the Mac OS. . 1972: Fiddler on the Roof becomes the longest-running Broadway show to this point, thanks in part to Jerome Robbins's famous bottle dance. 1973: Tommy Tune choreographs his own dance number in Seesaw (language) SEESAW - An early system on the IBM 701. [Listed in CACM 2(5):16 (May 1959)]. . 1974: Michael Bennett hosts an all-night gabfest for dancers to amass the stories he will turn into A Chorus Line. 1975: Andre De Shields dances George Faison's choreography in The Wiz. 1978: Bob Fosse creates Dancin' to spotlight his choreography. 1979: Ballroom, Michael Bennett's follow-up to A Chorus Line, closes after 116 performances, losing $2 million. 1981: Judith Jamison and Gregory Hines dance in Sophisticated Ladies. 1983: Natalia Makarova brings her pointe shoes to the revival of On Your Toes, which originally starred another Russian ballerina, Tamara Geva. 1985: There are so few musicals that the Tonys drop three categories: best actor, best actress, best choreography. 1986: AIDS ravages rav·age v. rav·aged, rav·ag·ing, rav·ages v.tr. 1. To bring heavy destruction on; devastate: A tornado ravaged the town. 2. the Broadway dance community, and one of the victims will be Michael Bennett, who pulls out of Chess because of illness. 1989: Jerome Robbins returns to musicals for the first time since Fiddler with Jerome Robbins' Broadway Jerome Robbins' Broadway is an anthology comprising musical numbers from earlier shows that were either directed or choreographed by Jerome Robbins. Robbins won his fifth Tony Award for direction of the show. , an anthology of his dance numbers. A burglar is arrested at the show when he shows up using tickets he stole. 1992: Susan Stroman makes her Broadway choreographic debut with the dances in Crazy for You. 1995: Savion Glover rejuvenates the tap dance tradition in Bring in `Da Noise, Bring in `Da Funk. 1997: Garth Fagan goes from Rochester to Broadway with the dancing animals of The Lion King. 1998: Broadway audiences meet the Swan Queen, except she's a Swan King in Matthew Bourne's updated Swan Lake. 2000: Susan Stroman builds a bridge between Broadway and concert dance with Contact. 2002: Twyla Tharp and Billy Joel announce they are collaborating on a new musical, Movin' Out. And the show goes on. Sylviane Gold has written about theater for the Boston Phoenix, The Wall Street Journal, Newsday, The New York Times, and other publications. |
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