Film zakulisowy jako gatunek i zwierciadło społeczne

Artykuł jest próbą charakterystyki nieopisanego dotąd zjawiska – filmu zakulisowego. Jego schemat fabularny opiera się na śledzeniu procesu powstawania spektaklu teatralnego od castingu po udaną premierę, do której dochodzi pomimo licznych perypetii. Ważną jego cechą jest przedstawienie zespołu teatralnego jako mikrospołeczności o potencjale metafory społecznej. Za prototyp gatunku można uznać backstage musical Busby’ego Berkeleya. W kolejnych dekadach nawiązywali do niego lub dekonstruowali jego struktury między innymi John Cassavetes, Bob Fosse, Carlos Saura, a ostatnio Alejandro González Iñárritu. Krzysztof Kieślowski i Agnieszka Holland w filmach należących do nurtu moralnego niepokoju w autorski sposób wykorzystali formułę filmu zakulisowego, by opowiedzieć o utracie złudzeń i zakwestionować ideę zespołu. Sugerowali przy tym, by ich filmy odczytywać nie jako krytykę instytucji teatru, lecz uniwersalne metafory społeczne.

Making Broadway Dance

Musical theater dance is an ever-changing and evolving dance form, egalitarian in its embrace of any and all dance genres. It is a living, transforming art developed by exceptional dance artists requiring dramaturgical understanding; character analysis; knowledge of history, art, design; and, most importantly, an extensive knowledge of dance, both intellectual and embodied. Its ghettoization within criticism and scholarship as a throw-away dance form, undeserving of analysis—derivative, cliché ridden, titillating and predictable, the ugly stepsister of both theater and dance—belies and ignores the historic role it has had in musicals as an expressive form equal to book, music, and lyric. The standard adage, “when you can’t speak anymore sing, when you can’t sing anymore dance,” expresses its importance in musical theater as the ultimate form of heightened emotional, visceral, and intellectual expression. Through in-depth analysis author Liza Gennaro examines Broadway choreography through the lens of dance studies, script analysis, movement research, and dramaturgical inquiry offering a close examination of a dance form that has heretofore received only the most superficial interrogation. This book reveals the choreographic systems of some of Broadway’s most influential dance-makers, including George Balanchine, Agnes de Mille, Jerome Robbins, Katherine Dunham, Bob Fosse, Donald McKayle, Savion Glover, Sergio Trujillo, Steven Hoggett, and Camille Brown. Making Broadway Dance is essential reading for theater and dance scholars, students, practitioners, and Broadway fans.

Introduction

I come to my interest in musical theater dance genetically. My father, Peter Gennaro, was a Tony Award winning choreographer and star dancer/choreographer on Broadway and television variety shows. My mother was a ballerina-turned-Broadway-dancer who danced for Bronislava Nijinska, Agnes de Mille, and Michael Kidd. My father, before becoming a choreographer in his own right, danced for Katherine Dunham, Hanya Holm, Michael Kidd, Bob Fosse, and Jerome Robbins. My parents were voracious dance and theater goers and I spent my childhood and teenage years seeing great dance and theater that included Judith Jamison in the premiere of Alvin Ailey’s “Cry,” Mikhail Baryshnikov’s first performances with The American Ballet Theatre, the premiere performance of Jerome Robbins’ ...

Taking the Reins

The genesis of the present-day director-choreographer, starting with de Mille’s role as director-choreographer on Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ill-fated Allegro (1947), is explored. How she employed dance as a narrative and metaphorical device in support of the allegorical structure of the libretto, and how her artistic vision conflicted with her collaborators is investigated. De Mille’s directorial oeuvre is considered in the context of the male-dominated world of Broadway. Robbins’ ascendance as the most influential director-choreographer of twentieth-century musical theater is examined in a close analysis of his choreography for and direction of Pajama Game (1954 [co-directed with George Abbott, co-choreographer Bob Fosse]), Peter Pan (1954), Bells Are Ringing (1956 [in which he collaborated with Bob Fosse]), Gypsy (1959), and Fiddler on the Roof (1964). West Side Story (1957) will be discussed here as an anomaly in Robbins’ musical theater career. I argue that Robbins’ interest in movement innovation in relation to his choreography for the “Jets” in West Side Story (1957) differs from his previous musical theater works. In addition, I will examine Robbins’ West Side Story collaboration with co-choreographer Peter Gennaro.

Introduction

The Introduction juxtaposes the musicals of Tommy Tune during the 1980s with the large-scale British extravaganzas that dominated Broadway in the same decade. These imported “megamusicals,” featured lavish spectacle, special effects, cookie-cutter casting, and booming, pop-rock soundscapes. By contrast, Tune’s shows were simple, elegant, and filled with unique personalities (including Tune himself). The special effects in a Tommy Tune show were ingeniously staged singing and dancing. Tune coined the term “guzzintahs” to refer to the seamless melding of song, dance, and story, as in “this goes into that, and that goes into this.” The Introduction also offers a brief history of the director-choreographer, including George Balanchine, who integrated ballet into Broadway dance and Agnes de Mille, who established her choreographic authorship as of equal importance alongside a show’s book, score, and direction. The creative use of “guzzintahs” by later figures such as Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Gower Champion, and Michael Bennett is explored, pointing the way toward Tune’s especially unified staging concepts.

Everything is Choreography

Everything Is Choreography: The Musical Theater of Tommy Tune is the first full-scale analysis of the work of Tommy Tune, and his place in a lineage of Broadway’s great director-choreographers. The decade of the 1980s was considered a low point for the American musical. Tune’s predecessors in the art of complete musical staging like Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Gower Champion, and Michael Bennett were either dead or withdrawn from the Broadway arena. Yet it was the period of Tune’s greatest success. The book examines how he adapted to an increasingly corporatized, high-stakes producing and funding environment. It considers how Tune kept the American musical a thriving, creative enterprise at a time when Broadway was dominated by British imports. It investigates Tune’s work since the mid-1990s, when he shifted his attentions to touring and regional productions, far from the glare of Broadway. Unlike his fellow director-choreographers, Tune also maintained a successful performing career, and the book details the deft balancing act that kept him working as a popular singer-dancer-actor while he was directing a series of striking and influential Broadway musicals.

It’s show time! All that Jazz y el coreógrafo como personaje cinematográfico

La danza ha sido desde los orígenes del cinematógrafo un atractivo ingrediente para el séptimo arte. No obstante, las películas que presentan a sus creadores resultan la excepción. De entre estas excepciones caben destacar películas como Isadora (Karel Reisz, 1968) o Nijinsky (Herbert Ross, 1980), donde se impone una representación idealizada del genio creador que se enfrenta a los convencionalismos que le rodean. Frente a esta imagen poetizada del coreógrafo, la película All that Jazz (Bob Fosse, 1979), cercana temporalmente a las dos mencionadas, muestra un personaje absolutamente humano en sus imperfecciones. Por esta razón, la obra más personal de Fosse se convierte en un buen punto de origen para el estudio de la representación del coreógrafo en el cine y para entender la forma en la que la gran pantalla ha representado la danza y a sus creadores.