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This chapter looks at the expenses associated with dancers, extras, and the orchestra. Dance provided an important visual and musical component of 17th-century opera. Giovanni Battista Balbi, who appeared in the first public opera in Venice, is the most famous Venetian dancer and choreographer of the 17th century. The papers of impresario Marco Faustini introduce the names of a number of previously unknown choreographers, namely Giovanni Battista Martini, Battista Artusi, Olivier Vigasio, and Agostino Ramaccini. Faustini paid the choreographer a set fee, and also provided shoes and costumes designed to complement the themes of the dances. Costumes were also provided for extras, who added pomp and splendor to various scenes in the opera. The Faustini papers also provide crucial data for the understanding of the orchestra: its size, makeup, and means of payment. The orchestra comprised stringed and various continuo instruments, and was led either by the composer of the opera, or by someone suggested by him.

As a teacher and choreographer for more than 30 years, Frank Hatchett has been a driving force in taking the latest steps and trends from street and social dance and translating them into a jazz dance style he calls “VOP.” From the 1960s twist to 1990s hip-hop, Frank Hatchett has been the conduit from the street to the commercial stage. VOP is based in strong concert and ethnic dance techniques, and a dancer who becomes proficient in VOP understands technique and has attitude and flair. Hatchett’s VOP attitude found a home in NYC when he first began teaching at JoJo’s Dance Factory in 1980, and flourished in 1984 when he became co-owner of a new studio at that very same location – the legendary Broadway Dance Center. Hatchett spent subsequent years as a mainstay at Broadway Dance Center, leading daily classes in his legendary style.

This chapter discusses the relatively recent appearance and developing role of the stage director and choreographer in opera and music theater; the increasing importance of image, light, design, and color to the point where they are equal to music, text, and physical movement; and new technology as a performance strategy.

Bob Fosse was Broadway’s top director-choreographer in the 1960s and 70s. His signature style included a forward thrust of the hips, hunched shoulders, gloved hands, and turned-in feet. Fosse’s brilliance was apparent in his ability to move smoothly from a scene’s end to a dance number; he heightened the emotions at the end of the scene so the dancing and singing would not clash. Fosse was formally trained as a tap dancer, had no background in ballet or modern dance, and possessed a limited facility. He adjusted each dancer’s movements so they reflected his own dance strengths and limitations rather than those of the individual dancer. Some of his shows and movies include Sweet Charity, Cabaret, Liza with a Z, and Chicago. His work was highly acclaimed for its innovation; Cabaret won eight Academy Awards, and that same year he won a Tony for Best Choreographer on Broadway for Pippin, as well as an Emmy for Liza with a Z.

This chapter begins with the successful appearances of dance team “Fox and Walters” at the Versailles nightclub. Walters meets rising choreographer Robert Alton and performs in the Theatre Guild’s critically-panned Parade. Chapter 3 presents a detailed look at the production and reception of the Cole Porter musical Jubilee, where Walters partnered June Knight, introduced “Just One of Those Things,” and danced “Begin the Beguine.” Walters’ development as a dancer — under the tutelage of Albertina Rasch and Tony and Rene De Marco — is discussed. This chapter also explores his friendship with young Montgomery Clift.

This chapter examines developments in the career of Alvin Ailey during the 1970s. Ailey's choreographic output slowed considerably after the Ellington festival and he made no new dances for his company or any other for two years. Despite this, Ailey' enterprise continued to expand and his Alvin Ailey Dance Theater continued to tour extensively and represent the US as an effective cultural ambassador on overseas tour including in Japan and the Philippines in 1977. A book celebrating the two-year accomplishments of his company, titled The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, was published with text by Joseph H. Mazo and photographs by Susan Cook.

Site-specific dances have been practiced for more than 40 years, in various public places across the country. These dances are termed site-specific since they serve as the inspiration as well as the setting for the dance. Compared to other dances that are usually made in a studio and would conventionally be performed on a theater stage, the movement, costuming, theme, spacing, music, and other such fundamental elements to the performance are shaped and informed by the use of alternative spaces. Although these types of dances have already existed for a relatively long period, little attention has been given either to the dances themselves or to those who created them. This book provides a forum for 16 well-known American site choreographers, and discusses their work. It also illustrates some of the important practical and theoretical information regarding this particular genre.

Musicals’ liminal moments are challenges because they exist at moments of change in the show when, for instance, a song is introduced or a dance concludes. This chapter examines transitional moments and liminality in the musical, particularly related to dance, the physical gesture of the musical. Next, it examines the multiple modes of communication used in a musical, including dance, and the way in which the hierarchy among them is determined. Also, it explores the role and function of dance in the musical, as well as the liminal, transitional moments in musicals that involve dance, specifically the dance break and the dream ballet. Finally, this chapter examines the ways in which some shows have successfully navigated the introduction and/or integration of dance in order to theorize about how other musicals might achieve this.

Reinterpreting the works of choreographers Kariamu Welsh and Ronald K. Brown as ethnographies of Brooklyn, New York’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, Indira Etwaroo situates Welsh’s and Brown’s respective bodies of work from two historical periods as artistic expressions shaped by the Great Migration, the Black Arts and Black Power movements, and the daily realities of mid and late 20th Century African-American urban life. As examples of “Neo-traditional African dance,” Etwaroo explores how Welsh and Brown recalibrated traditional African dance aesthetics for North American and European performance contexts that were quite distinct from those rooted in traditional African societies. As Welsh and Brown addressed current African-American political events in their works, they secured a contemporary relevance for the historically rooted dance aesthetics they pioneered. Etwaroo also places Welsh and Brown within a long tradition of African-American dance choreographers and explores Welsh’s influence on Brown as evidence of an established neo-traditional African dance ethos in the United States, which constitutes a tradition in its own right.

“Reframing the Recent Past: Issues of Reconstruction in Israeli Contemporary Dance” treats the recent past in a survey of Israeli contemporary dance, framing the study within an examination of that country's own complex relationship to its dance identity and history. Re-mixing and re-framing, rather than dance reconstruction, are found to be the strategies most suited to contemporary Israeli dance at this point in its relatively recent history as a nation. As choreographers, including the internationally known Ohad Naharin of Batsheva Dance Company, make choices about how and what to reconstruct, a dance community is challenged to confront its identity and to define its relationship to its past.

“Touchstones of Tradition and Innovation: Pas de Deux by Petipa, Balanchine and Forsythe” closely juxtaposes three duets from different centuries and styles, though each is located within the ballet idiom. A comparative analysis forces inquiries into the codes and values of the balletic form itself, with a consideration of those values as they emerge through the steps and choreographic structures of the dances, the identities of the choreographers and the sociopolitical climate surrounding the creation of each work. The three examples are signposts by which to see the effects of time upon a classical tradition, and they demonstrate how both individual artists and collective choices have shaped that tradition.

This chapter traces the establishment of a ballet company by Yakobson. This company was the first individual, single-choreographer ballet company to exist in the USSR since the 1920s. The focus was on self-definition, on individual experience, and a reworking of dance language to inspire new meanings. The platform for the company's work was the Soviets' inaugural single-choreographer-led ballet troupe. The company was based on Balanchine in the United States. This new company spread the lead roles among all ranks of dancers depending on their abilities and talents. Every dancer was considered a soloist. Through Yakobson's choreography, dance and culture became inseparable.