Choreographer Wayne Cilento confronted an uphill job main the brand new Broadway revival of Bob Fosse’s revue “Dancin’” — no video had been manufactured from the unique present, there was no script to review and not one of the steps had been recorded.
Fortunately, Cilento had a secret weapon: Much of it was in his physique.
Cilento was one of many 16 authentic dancers when the present landed on Broadway in 1978 and lots of steps had been nonetheless lodged in his limbs. “There’s definitely muscle memory,” he says. “I actually can see myself doing it.”
This spring, he has been tasked to not solely direct Fosse’s authentic imaginative and prescient for Broadway but additionally replace it, each honoring the late theater legend and likewise pulling the present into 2023.
“The curse of all curses is what would Bob do at this time? So if it wasn’t me and it was Bob doing ‘Dancin’’ at this time, how would he go about it?” Cilento says.
“It’s kind of like taking him apart and trying to figure out what was going on in his head. There was always something going on in his head. He always had a purpose for why he was doing that particular movement and that number.”
“Dancin’” is a collection of unconnected dance items that features a wide range of kinds — ballet, soft-show, jazz — with a couple of huge scenes pushing the dancers to the restrict. Cilento calls it a rock ‘n’ roll present, a dance live performance and a theatrical occasion all rolled into one.
Performances of the newly named “Bob Fosse’s ’Dancin’″ start March 2 on the Music Box Theatre, with a gap evening set for March 19.
The authentic had a four-year run from 1978 to 1982 and gained two Tony Awards, together with finest choreography. It has dances set to songs from a wide range of sources, together with Neil Diamond, Dolly Parton, Jerry Jeff Walker and John Philip Sousa.
The first step was to reconstruct the unique. The reboot makes use of Cilento’s recollections in addition to these of Christine Colby Jacques, who was an authentic understudy, which means she realized all of the elements. Footage was watched of a taping from Japan in addition to a non-Equity nationwide tour, though that reduce numbers and did not have any authentic solid members.
“It’s a very complicated process, that’s for sure,” says Cilento. Fosse himself appeared to foreshadow the difficulty forward, telling The New York Times in 1978: “Some of my best work we’ll never see again. There’s just no way of reconstructing it.” Fosse died in 1987.
Cilento reduce the unique present from three acts to 2, sliced some numbers that had been enjoyable however not transferring it alongside and boiled down a bit wherein every dancer steps ahead to introduce their dances.
“It’s not going to work the way it was done 45 years ago,” he says. “I think at that time that was a brilliant concept, but I didn’t think the audience of today would have the patience.”
Cilento eliminated, however he additionally added: A ballet made up of vignettes a couple of man coming to town for the primary time that was reduce earlier than Broadway years in the past has been restored. Each part honors Fosse by nodding to the kinds of his numerous exhibits, like “Sweet Charity” and “Liza.” Cilento additionally leans into Fosse’s movie profession and has envisioned the stage as a soundstage, making “Dancin’” extra cinematic.
“This is not about me. I’m directing it. I’m honoring him. It’s his work — transitions, anything. It’s all him,” Cilento says. “It’s what I think he would have done.”
So intense is the physicality required that Cilento break up his previous half and gave it to 4 dancers. “I don’t think I sat down once,” he says, laughing. “I felt it would be uneven and unfair to give one dancer what I did.”
Ioana Alfonso, a veteran actor and dancer who has carried out in “Wicked” and “The Wiz Live!,” says Cilento has given her and his dancers the chance to reinvent the work whereas remaining true to it.
“It’s been a real treat to be able to dive into the material with someone who is also embracing our individuality and our uniqueness and our artistry as we bring it to the table, while also very much honoring Fosse and his work,” she says.
Cilento is hoping to widen the viewers’s understanding of Fosse, whose widespread legacy is usually made up of numerous bowler hats, angular hip thrusts and shrugging shoulders, due to his inspiration behind “Chicago.”
“I feel like my obligation to Bob is to expose him for what he really was. And he was an amazing dancer in all styles,” he says. “’Dancin” was like Bob’s opportunity to do a freedom of expression of dance.”
“Dancin’” was an necessary present for Cilento, who earned a Tony nomination for his work. He had beforehand auditioned for Fosse for “Chicago” however did not get a component and was doing “The Act” with Liza Minnelli when Fosse collaborator Graciela Daniele urged Fosse to audition Cilento. Cilento did audition, however did not suppose a lot of it till opening evening of “The Act.”
“I see him in the audience and I almost fainted on the stage and then I ran into him at the party and he said, ‘I want you.’ And I said, ‘What?’ ‘I said, I want you for the show.’”
Cilento would go on to win a Tony for choreographing “The Who’s Tommy” and accumulate a listing of hit exhibits, together with “Wicked,” “Aida” and “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying” starring Matthew Broderick.
But returning to “Dancin’” proved a time journey. “I was so emotional,” he says. “Every time I put something that I did on dancers, it just threw me back. A wave just hit me. It was like really intense for me to see it out there.”
Alfonso has felt that — a vibration throughout rehearsals and an otherworldly vitality. “I do feel like there are ghosts among us at all times,” she says.
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