Guest post from Shira Olson: Spring Spectacular!

Da da da da da Da da da da da Da da da da da da! “Start spreading the news, I’m leaving today…” New York, New York!

It’s a song that I’ve pretended for years to know every word to, but like the audience at “The Rockettes New York Spring Spectacular” I was lost during the group sing-a-long until the lyrics were posted up on the big screen. But oh what fun it was to smile, cheer, and laugh along with every fumble we collectively made.

The show that got dumped on in the NY Times review (“...this numbingly overblown 90-minute infomercial for the city that never sleeps threatened to send me into a waking coma…) is a show I quite enjoyed. It’s an advertisement for New York City in the most cliche way, yet as soon as we bought the tickets to the show we knew we were setting ourselves up for a cheesy, over the top phenomenon. If you know me you know that I’m a sucker for phenomenons, especially pop culture ones. There was glitz, there was glam, there was a humbling, albeit pretty ridiculous, plot line, great dancing, good singing, and of course, some high kicking.

This was my first time at Radio City Music Hall. What a magnificently huge theater. I saw the show with my brother and two close friends of mine who were visiting NYC for the first time. The theme of the show was quite appropriate for our group. I had been playing tour guide all weekend and got to take a break for Bernie (the character who’s NY sightseeing company was being threatened by digital takeover) to show us around. And I was thrilled to do so.

I actually found an important message in the midst of the stupidity of this all. Laura Benanti’s character, Jenna, is a big time CEO and entrepreneur. Jenna has plans to buy out Bernie’s tour bus company and virtualize the whole New York City experience. Derek Hough, an Angel named Jack sent by God aka Whoopi Goldberg’s voice (cue protest poster from “Hair” that reads: I saw God and she’s Black) to intervene and save the bus company. If he succeeds he will be rewarded with wings. High stakes job, Whoopi Godberg.

The show exists for tourists and more importantly, children. There’s no question that virtual experiences have taken over. In fact, I wonder how many of the children in the audience have had more memorable digital experiences than real life ones. In the Spring Spectacular Bernie has to prove to Jenna and the audience there there is nothing that compares to the “real thing”. What we see and get out of technology can’t be shared in the same ways of what we see by doing. Some may argue that by going to this show, with large technological elements and sets of New York City landmarks, I was doing the opposite of the “real thing”. But I say I was seeing a theatrical work in the greatest city of all that inspired me to feel giddy and youthful and send me away with a takeaway. Put your phone down and do something with real people!!!

The show’s big opener is set to “Welcome to New York” by Taylor Swift (BTW if you don’t  listen to 1989 at least five times a week you’re doing something wrong) . The Rockettes danced and sang inside Grand Central Station as Jack arrived in the Big A. It was a wonderfully exciting. Surrounded by cuties and adorable families I couldn’t help but clap along in wonderment.

The show relied heavily on audience engagement. Where the tour guide went, we went too. In 90 minutes I got to see Central Park, The Empire State Building, The NY Public Library, The Met, attend Fashion Week, and go to a game for every major New York sports team. At The Met, which I had been to just the day before, we watched Jenna reflect on her desire to be a dancer as she sang “I Could Have Danced All Night” with Edgar Degas’ famous ballerinas. In Central Park, where I had also been just the day before, we watched The Rockettes tap dance in the rain and saw The Alice and Wonderland statue come alive (Amy Olson, how come there’s no statue picture there yet??). During Fashion Week I was entertained by the glitz and glam and also by two of The Rockettes malfunctioning light up blazers (lol). At The Library Tina Fey and Amy Poehler (my heros please I just really want to be both of you at the same time) voiced Patience and Fortitude, the lions standing guard. And at The Empire State Building I tried to ignore the script and songs, it got super cheesy and totally bad, but did enjoy the dancers on wires who were flipping around as Jack and Jenna began to fall for each other as he sang “The Way You Look Tonight”.

There’s no need to be a critic for a show thats only goal is for fun and entertainment (and is obviously a cash cow). At the show I had a lot of fun and was incredibly entertained. The show allowed me to share an experience with my friends where we were all doing something in New York City for the first time. This isn’t a show to go to if you have nothing better to do with your night. It’s a show to go to to smile, sing a long, and have a great time!

I also confirmed at the show that in order to be a Rockette you must be between 5’6’’ and 5’10’’ ½ . I make the cut! I’ll see you next season future audience members at my Radio City Music Hall debut. This year as an audience member, next year as a Rockette.

Guest Post from Kevin Olson! Are classic plays really classic?

Last night I had the wonderful thrill (not an exaggeration) to see the classic Eugene O'Neill play "The Iceman Cometh" -- all 4 hours and 40 minutes of it. This production directed by Robert Falls and produced originally at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre was magnificent and never dull and I did not want it to end. Rather than focus on reviewing that production, it inspires these somewhat undeveloped thoughts.

My family and I are excited to see “Hamilton” the new Lin Manuel-Miranda musical at some point or the soon to open on Broadway “Fun Home” adapted by Lisa Kron and Jeanine Tesori. Both are sophisticated new musical theatre pieces that have opened to rave reviews in the NYT and elsewhere. For many, compared to classic plays, musicals are more accessible both in terms of interest and availability thereby making it easier to commit money, time and effort in order to see them; even in some cases, to make lengthy day-long trips to do so as I did to see this production of “Iceman.”

Many people in my life are avid theatre-goers. Yet some (perhaps many) of them would be reluctant to attend this or any production of "The Iceman Cometh" for many reasons including its length, its heavy-o-sity, the way the play presents women or even the archaic dialects O’Neill uses. At times, I too hesitate to go see plays by Ibsen, Chekov, Shakespeare and others. Why is this so?  I love theatre and so do each of these people in my life.

One answer for me lies in the experiences we have seeing poor, mediocre or even good productions of these classic plays. What do I mean?  When my son was playing the clarinet in middle school, I would go to performances when the small school band was playing. Musically, these concerts were pretty bad if considered only in terms of the quality of performance. Of course, there are many reasons why those performances were significant and fully legitimate arts events. But that can be a subject for another blog entry.

 

But let’s be real, as music, they stunk. My son’s band playing “Appalachian Spring” cannot be compared to how that music would sound when played by the New York Philharmonic.

So too with productions of classic plays that I have seen and in which I have participated. I directed a fairly mediocre production of another O’Neill play, “A Touch of the Poet;” snooze city for that one. And I have sat through countless dull-put-me-to-sleep college, amateur and professional productions of plays by all the classic playwrights. (Musicals too F.Y.I.). And so have those of you reading this blog entry. Taken cumulatively, however, I believe these experiences of the classic drama repertoire create a bias that make it harder and harder to attend classic theatre.

Like symphonies by Mahler, Beethoven and Shostakovich, these plays require tremendous skill in conception and performance in order to allow us to glimpse and uncover their greatness.

So too we cannot fully “get” why classic plays are considered classic unless we commit to seeing the all-too-rare opportunities to see great productions of them. We have to seek them out by scanning reviews from around the world, hoping they are re-mounted somewhere nearby and then hope our ability to actually see them are more than the pipe-dreams so cruelly destroyed in “Iceman.”

And often if the production turns out to be only good, let alone mediocre or poor, we snooze making it that much harder to go see a production of “The Cherry Orchard” or “Long Day’s Journey Into Night.” This summer Audra McDonald is playing Josie Hogan in O’Neill’s “A Moon for the Misbegotten” at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts in the remote northwestern corner of the state. It will sell out quickly most certainly because she is in it. I really hope it is not just a good production but a great one.

I am taking that thought one step further. Concertos are solo performer vehicles. When we go see a play because stars are in it, it may be that concerto experience we are most interested in. Yet any great, revealing production of a classic play is a symphonic experience so our expectations are misdirected. Last night at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, I watched a symphony unfold on stage with all the notes of creaky dialect and dark, nasty themes coming together to make an unforgettable experience that I really did not want to end.

Perhaps this is why classic theatre and the performing arts have such an reputation for elitism -- the chances to experience their greatness are rare. I wish I could afford an expensive bottle of red zinfandel to appreciate the complexity and possibilities of the wine. But I settle for the $10 bottles.

Just a few final thoughts related to “Iceman.”  Nathan Lane was wonderful as was Brian Dennehy and the entire cast. The lights and set design were world-class and should be studied by student designers in classes around the world. But  often what convinces us (me too) to go see a

classic play is because Audra McDonald or Nathan Lane is in it.

I learned from this production inspired in part by reading a review of it in the NY Review of Books that “Iceman” is really a symphony with multiple melodies, tonalities and counter-points slowly revealed over time. It strikes me that this is true for much classic theatre. 

As we listen to the final moments of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony or Shostakovich’s 5th, the closing sounds linger in our consciousness for a time in congregational silence. Then we stand to cheer the ensemble of artists and wish for an encore. I wanted to spend even more time with the residents of Harry Hope’s decrepit saloon in lower Manhattan.

TBT: Beauty and the Beast vs. The Lion King

Today I'm going to dive into the most middlebrow of all middlebrow topics: ranking Disney musical films from the 1990s. I am going to play my cards immediately by saying that the purpose of this post is to rectify a myth that unfortunately has spread too far and too wide among people from my generation. There is a widespread belief that The Lion King is the best Disney film of the 1990s. This belief rests on nostalgia, false memories of what actually happened in the movie, and the success of the subsequent stage version. Beauty and the Beast is far and away the better film.

Plot and structure: Beauty wins here without a doubt. The plotting and structure of the film is beautiful. The stained glass prologue, followed by the musical introduction of "Belle", to the subtle shifts in character (which are shown, not told), to the pacing of the romance, to the climax and grand finale--every moment fits together beautifully. The Lion King, on the other hand, is much more uneven. It too has a beautiful prologue ("Circle of Life"), but the theme that gets introduced there feels forced onto the material that follows. The romance in Lion King is completely peripheral to the main plot and feels unnecessary. We as an audience are given no compelling reason to root for Mufasa and Simba over Scar. Simba's character development is superficial at best and we are told, not shown, how he grows and matures.

Characters: Since Frozen premiered last year the Disney princess characters of old have gotten a bad rep. Part of that has to do with how the characters are portrayed in the movies. Ariel gives up one of her greatest talents for a chance to be with a man. Sleeping Beauty and Snow White are so passive as to be asleep for half their films while their princes fight off evil witches. What really gave the princess characters a bad rep though was Disney's marketing machine, which turned all of these characters into nothing more than commercial fodder and symbols of "traditional" feminine virtues. The marketing and cultural response to it does a disservice to the characters, Belle from B&B in particular. 

What's Belle's problem, according to these critics? That she has Stockholm Syndrome. The only reason she falls in love with the Beast is because she has a psychological condition which makes her fall in love with her captor, they say. A simple viewing of the film shows that this interpretation doesn't hold water. Belle is not kidnapped: she trades places to save her elderly father. Belle is not trapped in the castle: one of the Beast's true signs of love and selflessness is to let Belle leave to take care of her father. Belle does not fall in love with Beast-as-captor; she only falls in love with him when he changes. He becomes more gracious and giving and way less selfish. The audience sees all of these changes and can understand why Belle's feelings towards him are changing. It's twisting to the film to say she only fell in love because of Stockholm Syndrome.

Simba and Nala are no match for Belle and Beast. Nala is a wasted character without all that much to do. Simba obviously struggles throughout his life, but has no clear character traits and does not undergo the kind of deep change we see Belle and the Beast experience in B&B.

The films are more evenly matched when it comes to villains and side-kick characters. Scar and Gaston are both wonderful villains, but even here Gaston works better into the structure of his film. He is selfish, like the Beast, but has the outer beauty the Beast lacks. Gaston also initially pursues Belle for selfish reasons. Unlike the Beast, Gaston does not change, and serves to emphasize the Beast's character changes. Scar, who is a great character by himself, does no such work to help the overall plot/structure/momentum of The Lion King.

Side-kick characters are great in both. But again Lumiere, Cogsworth, and Mrs. Potts are primarily there to serve the story. They have teeth in the game; they too want to be human again. They offer guidance and support to Belle and the Beast, and serve as a kind of Greek Chorus as their romance progresses. Timon and Pumbaa are there to be...well, Timon and Pumbaa, appealing characters who sing "Hakuna Matata" and who help Simba get over his father's death. But that's it. Like Scar they are great characters by themselves, but don't serve the overall story nearly as well as Beauty's sidekicks do.

Songs: Howard Ashman and Alan Menken wrote such beautiful music for Beauty. People even said that the best musical on Broadway in 1991 was playing in the movie theater. The music serves the story and characters perfectly. "Belle": the perfect exposition. "Be Our Guest": the best animated Busby Berkeley homage you can imagine. "Gaston": such clever lyrics! "Beauty and the Beast": so poignant and beautiful, especially when sung by Angela Lansbury. The Lion King's songs are also memorable and some do their job to serve the story. It's telling, though, that the two most memorable songs, "Circle of Life" and "Can You Feel the Love Tonight", are tacked on. They don't serve the plot, story, or characters. They serve Elton John and Tim Rice's quest for an Oscar (which they got). Beauty obviously wins here too.

Visuals: Okay this one's a tie. Beauty has the stained glass prologue, the cleverness of "Be Our Guest", the computer animated ballroom scene, and the Beast's transformation at the end. Lion King has "Circle of Life" sequence, the wildebeest stampede, and Mufasa in the clouds. Both pretty spectacular examples of animation.

Reception: Lion King had one of the best box offices of all time, and that definitely counts for something, but let's remember that this blog is called "Middlebrow Musings" and there's nothing more middlebrow than the Oscars. Beauty was the first (and until Up [like Lion King, another super overrated movie] the only) animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Let's also note that nearly every film critic, when reviewing The Lion King, said it wasn't as good as Beauty and the Beast. Here are some examples.

LA Times: http://articles.latimes.com/1994-06-15/entertainment/ca-4277_1_lion-king
Gene Siskel at Chicago Tribune: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-06-24/entertainment/9406240051_1_young-lion-cub-lion-king-howard-ashman
NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9501E0DE163DF936A25755C0A962958260

I like both movies, but B&B is far and away the better film and deserves better in the minds and memories of millennials. 

Guest post from Laura Landau! Romeo and Juliet at City Ballet

Romeo and Juliet: Shakespeare's classic tale of star-crossed lovers.  A beautifully tragic story for all of New York's cynical romantics on Valentine's day weekend.  I've always loved Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet score and have seen and enjoyed multiple performances with MacMillen's choreography, so I was excited to see how City Ballet's would compare.  Unfortunately, the performance didn't live up to my Romeo and Juliet expectations. 

The choreography was over-dramatic and didn't fully fill the music, and the staging felt either empty or overcrowded, depending on the scene.  The one set piece impressively transformed from Juliet's bedroom to the balcony to the monastery and finally the Capulet's tomb, but was bulky and distracting.  The balcony scene, always a favorite, didn't have the expressive passionate quality of MacMillen's and didn't take advantage of the building romance in the music.  At the end of the performance, I felt neither moved nor saddened by the families discovering their dead children in the tomb.

Despite this harsh critique, I actually quite enjoyed the performance.  Sterling Hyltin made the most perfect Juliet: tiny and vulnerable, making the most complicated lifts appear effortless.  Her acting pulled me in and she was completely believable as a young girl struggling against her parent's demands and her new-found sexuality.  Robbie Fairchild was unimpressive, but Daniel Ulbricht was an outstanding Mercutio, tackling many jumps and a dramatic death scene.

Overall, while it wasn't the best Romeo and Juliet I've seen, I'm glad I went.  The music alone would have been worth it.  And I love a good tragedy on Valentine's day. 

More forays into the world of concert dance: 2013 edition

February 9th, 2013
The Waltz Project, choreography by Peter Martins
Like I said in the previous post, on a whim I purchased a rush ticket for City Ballet's Winter 2013 season. I got extremely lucky with my seat; I was in the front row of the first ring, which is probably the best seat in the house. The first ballet of the evening, The Waltz Project, featured four couples dancing to contemporary American waltz music played on piano choreographed by Peter Martins. The couples had different colored costumes and each had their own personalities. What I remember most was Tiler Peck's playfulness and Teresa Reichlen's grandeur. The woman sitting next to me said, "It's just so beautiful" when it was over.

N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz, choreography by Jerome Robbins
Next up was something totally different, but much more familiar. Opus Jazz is like an abstract West Side Story. The dancers have sneakers on, the girls' hair is loose, and the style, unsurprisingly, is much more jazzy. A highlight here was the third section, which I couldn't help but compare to a dance at a high school gym, each dancer taking a turn to show off his or her skills.

Symphony in Three Movements, choreography by George Balanchine
Before this ballet started the conductor explained some of Stravinsky's influences in writing the music. I don't remember the specifics of the talk too well. I do remember the ballet opening with a powerful image of sixteen women standing in a diagonal line across the stage before the main dancers joined them. One of the sections had a pair of dancers making very particular gestures with their arms, evoking what seemed to be Asian dance traditions. This work comes from a similar milieu as Agon and it was nice to see how Stravinsky and Balanchine came together to create nearly perfectly integrated art. The end of the show was super weird because the lady from Alabama sitting next to me gave me twenty dollars to spend on drinks with my friend afterwards. I was too shocked to return the money, even though I meant to.

February 21st, 2013
The Sleeping Beauty, staging by Peter Martins
Other than that childhood Nutcracker this work was my first full length ballet. The music, by Tchaikovsky, is obviously great. Most of the dance highlights come in act II. The Garland Dance (which uses the "Sleeping Beauty waltz" music) with choreography by Balanchine had what seemed like fifty dancers (including many little girls) weaving around the stage in beautiful patterns without bumping into one another. Unlike my first evening at the ballet, this time I sat in the fourth ring, which, for the Garland Dance in particular, gave me a much better view of the architecture and geometry of the dance. The other dance highlight was watching Sterling Hyltin dance the Rose Adagio. She has to balance on pointe on one foot for extended periods of time multiple times during the movement. It was actually terrifying to watch, but she help up and looked beautiful.

I was less taken with the rest of the piece. There were a lot of non-dance moments. The wake-up scene was incredibly anti-climactic. The witch wasn't all that scary. The role of the Lilac Fairy (the second female lead) is not so well fleshed out. It felt like watching a second-rate Fantasia onstage, especially the sequence of random fairy tale characters dancing at the wedding at the end. Part of me blamed my lack of interest on my lack of knowledge and respect for 19th century Russian ballet traditions, but I'm really not feeling the need to rush back to see "The Sleeping Beauty," except for the two segments noted above.

May 26th, 2013
Fancy Free, choreography by Jerome Robbins
Because of the theme of this afternoon of ballets, it would have been such a good field trip for my Dance in Musical Theater course. It was exactly about the intersection of Broadway and ballet! In fact, two of the three pieces on the program had been extensively discussed in class! The first, "Fancy Free", was a precursor to the musical "On the Town". It still works as a great piece of entertainment with a beautiful pas de deux in the middle that Tiler Peck performed very expressively.

Who Cares?, choreography by George Balanchine
This one is set to a medley of Gershwin music. I liked following the structure, which combined group work, solos, and duets all leading up to a finale with the entire cast. Such fun!

West Side Story Suite, choreography by Jerome Robbins
I actually wasn't crazy about the distillation of West Side Story to just the dance bits. It did give the dancers the opportunity to sing, and there is something special about seeing these dances performed at Lincoln Center, an urban renewal project that replaced the slums of the show. That being said I wasn't sure what the point was. We've seen these dances on film, in numerous Broadway revivals, and in community theater productions all over. Why do we need ballet dancers to do it too?

June 2nd, 2013
Allegro Brilliante, choreography by George Balanchine
Frankly I don't remember much from this ballet other than that one of the four women at the beginning fell down immediately after the curtain rose. Whoops. The funny thing about this afternoon in particular was that while my dad and I were at the ballet together, my sister and my mother were at a Twins Game in Minnesota. As my mom said on Facebook, gender stereotypes be damned! One other thing I remember about this piece was that we saw married couple Megan Fairchild and Andrew Veyette dance as the two leads.

The Cage, choreography by Jerome Robbins
Biology and ballet join forces in this eerie Jerome Robbins piece from the 50s. The women of the Company are a tribe of dangerous insects, luring in male prey to eat. There's a dominant and powerful queen who in this performance was portrayed by Teresa Reichlen whose height made her perfect for the role. There's also a novice who must be initiated into the tribe by killing prey of her own. In her pas de deux with her prey she is initially ambivalent, but in the end biology wins and she goes through with the kill.

Andantino, choreography by Jerome Robbins
This Robbins piece was much less exciting, just a short duet at a slow tempo. It had Tiler Peck though and seeing her is always a highlight.

Stravinsky Violin Concerto, choreography by George Balanchine
I loved this black and white ballet and found the video on City Ballet's YouTube page to be very helpful for directing my gaze during the performance. The use of the heel, the Russian folk-dance quality, and the strange movements in the pas de deux all come through in the video. In general I find NYCB's video introduction to the dances such a valuable tool, taking us into the world of the dancers and helping non-dance people appreciate the works so much more. Here's the Stravinsky Violin Concerto video:

December 15th, 2013
Chroma, choreography by Wayne McGregor
There is so much more in the world of dance in New York than just City Ballet, though it took me a while to take the initiative to explore. One of the greats is Alvin Ailey, the company I had seen on tour in New Bedford. They do an annual holiday season at City Center in New York and my parents and I went together. It was a mixed bill exclusively featuring the work of contemporary choreographers. The first piece, Chroma, used extreme flexibility and the craziest ballet moves in a way that really got the audience going. There was a sharp, bright, white backdrop which added to the extreme feeling of the piece.

Another Night, choreography by Kyle Abraham
A jazzy, fun party. Not as good as a similar, older piece choreographed by Ailey that I saw in New Bedford.

Strange Humors, choreography by Robert Battle
A duet for two men. There was one crazy part when they fell backwards that looked extremely painful. This one was a crowd favorite, but was too short for me to have a real impact.

Minus 16, choreography by Ohad Naharin
I said the last one was a crowd favorite, but maybe nothing other than Ailey's Revelations comes as close to this piece at making the audience go totally nuts. I must say I was completely swept up with the rest of the audience in every moment of this piece. So much of the work is meant to surprise the audience including the choice of music, the costume changes, the transitions, and who participates in the dance. Because of that element of surprise I don't really want to give anything here. Let's just say that it's a must see and if Ailey comes to town or if you're in New York and they're performing this piece please go see it. I promise you will be filled with a kind of goofy, infectious joy that doesn't come around too much in the hoity-toity world of concert dance, or even in life in general. Also, you will never think of the end of the Passover Seder in the same way.

Stay tuned for posts about what the world of dance offered me in 2014.

Getting to know the world of classical dance

Even though I am a relative ignoramus when it comes to the world of classical ballet I cannot imagine a more exciting place to follow the art form than New York City. Not only is NYC home to the company that Balanchine built, the New York City Ballet, it is also host to three annual seasons of American Ballet Theater (soon to be two--ABT's Nutcracker is moving to California next winter), as well as regular visits from nearly all the major companies in the world. I am grateful to have discovered ballet in this city at this time. 

I must say that my exposure to concert dance prior to moving to New York had been extremely limited. Yes, I knew the Nutcracker existed and that it was a grand holiday tradition. I knew that Swan Lake was a ballet thanks to the animated movie and "Black Swan". I took a ballet class when I was in third grade that taught me the basics--I knew the positions and what a plie was. I quit after one year (in favor of my Jewish Day School's Israeli Dance Troupe) though some of my ballet pictures remain. 

I also went to an extremely memorable Alvin Ailey performance in New Bedford, MA during my junior year of high school, where I saw "Revelations" and was temporarily transfixed. Deeper engagement with concert dance would come later. 

My first "deep dive" into the world of ballet came because of a class I took as a whim at Yale: Dance in Musical Theater. It was the second semester of my senior year and I had not taken a performing arts class since Band my Freshman year of High School. Why did I do it? It was a fifth class and I wanted to take a risk and try something different before graduating. The class was mostly theater majors and I was way out of my league in terms of talent and experience. The very first day had us learning a combination from "Cool" from West Side Story. Needless to say, I was a klutz and could not learn the 20 second routine. 

That being said I was deeply impressed with the professors. One of them, Dan Egan, coordinates the musical theater curriculum at Yale. The other, Emily Coates, is one of the most interesting members of Yale's faculty. She was a member of the New York City Ballet in the early 90s, working directly under Jerome Robbins before his death. She then shifted to dancing in modern companies before beginning undergraduate work at Yale. She quickly made a name for herself and became the director of Dance Studies, collaborating with a wide range of faculty--obviously those in the Theater Studies department, but also in more unexpected places, like the Physics department! Because of the amazing faculty and the opportunity to learn using a very different part of my being I decided to stick with the class. 

The class focused on four major choreographers in musical theater: Agnes DeMille (of Oklahoma! fame), Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, and Bill T. Jones. For each of the choreographers we spent one part of our class learning about history and context, and the other part of our class actually learning their choreography--complete with traditional dance warm-ups! I had to do barre exercises--for a Yale class! For the record, my turnout is terrible and I could never be a real danseur. 

What made the class even better was that outside choreographers came to guest teach the class--people who had actually worked on Broadway and in ballet. For our Robbins piece ("The Bottle Dance" from Fiddler) we had Professor Coates, who had direct contact with Robbins. For the DeMille piece ("The Civil War Ballet" from Bloomer Girl) we had Liza Gennaro, daughter of Peter Gennaro (Robbins' assistant on West Side Story), and choreographer in her own right. For the Fosse piece ("Steam Heat" from The Pajama Game) we had Mary MacLeod, who performed in the Fosse musical/dance revue on Broadway. And for the Bill T. Jones piece ("Zombie" from Fela!), we had Maija Garcia, Jones' Associate choreographer. 

It was an amazing line-up and it was so fun to learn and discuss those dances. We finished the class with a performance of "The Bottle Dance" and "Steam Heat" for a group of New Haven high school students. I had a big group of friends come out and support me. It was a lovely part of the conclusion of my Yale experience. I am proud that I still know most of the steps to "The Bottle Dance" and could easily relearn "Steam Heat" after watching the videos a couple times. 

Another great feature of the course was that we didn't just look at dance traditions from Broadway--Professor Coates made sure to incorporate context from the dance world at large. That included the amazing ballets of George Balanchine, someone I barely knew anything about. I remember watching "Agon" for the class and being confused by it. I also remember Profs. Coates and Egan talking about Jerome Robbins deep insecurity vis a vis Balanchine; he could never live up. There must have been something special in the world of Classical (or neo-Classical ballet) but to be honest, without any real exposure beyond one or two YouTube videos I still had no appreciation. 

Only after finishing this class, moving to New York, and buying a rush ticket to NYCB on a whim, did I begin to realize how astonishing Balanchine's world of Classical dance truly was.