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Common Ground: Two faces of Broadway
By Nancy Wozny
Jerry Mitchell and Bill T. Jones take musical theatre
dance in different directions
 Who said Broadway has run out of ideas? Not so in the dance
department, with two groundbreaking shows, Spring Awakening
and Legally Blonde, opening in 2006 and 2007, respectively.
The two most innovative choreographers represented on
Broadway last season could not be more different in
approach, yet each brought with him a style of dance that
was new to the Broadway stage.
Broadway veteran Jerry Mitchell made his directorial debut
with Legally Blonde, a seamless dance-a-thon that came
directly on the heels of his work as choreographer on
Hairspray. In a surprise turn, postmodern concert dance icon
Bill T. Jones brought his signature gestural language to
Spring Awakening, one of the most original musicals of the
decade. Mitchell and Jones have had divergent careers, yet
both ended up rocking the status quo. Uncommon creativity
unifies these two dancemakers, along with a thoroughly
integrated style that melds story and movement. In both
shows, it's the choreography that moves the story along, and
you never get the feeling that the "big dance number" is
about to start.
Mitchell, who has worked on Broadway since the 1980s, has
been a formidable presence there for the last six to eight
years. In addition to his work on Legally Blonde and
Hairspray, he also choreographed the 2004 revival of La Cage
Aux Folles (which received Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer
Critics Circle Awards), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (2005), and
The Full Monty (2000). In fact, he is one of the few, if not
only, choreographers to have three shows running
simultaneously on Broadway (Hairspray, La Cage, and Dirty
Rotten Scoundrels). His film and TV work as a choreographer
includes The Drew Carey Show, Drop Dead
Gorgeous, and Scent of a Woman.
As a dancer Mitchell earned his technical chops with Lee
Theodore, Peter Gennaro, and Ann Reinking in New York and
Los Angeles during the 1980s. "[The '80s were] a great time
to be in New York City," he says. Touring with A Chorus Line
in the roles of Greg, Don, and Al also helped him get his
dance game together. "I come from a very competitive and
athletic family," he says. "I really think my sports
background was a plus." As a choreographer, Mitchell trained
with the pros: He was Michael Bennett's assistant on
Dreamgirls and worked closely with Jerome Robbins on Jerome
Robbins' Broadway. "I learned from people who were the best
at their craft," he says. "Sometimes I find myself sounding
like Michael. My time with Jerome and Michael informs
everything in my work."
The film Legally Blonde was not an obvious choice to
reinvent as a musical--the story of a pink-clad sorority
girl, Elle Woods, who heads to Harvard to get her boyfriend
back is not readily envisioned in song and dance. But
Mitchell knew otherwise immediately. "Elle is a larger
than-life character and such a positive influence," he says.
"I knew right away that I wanted to work on the project."
Mitchell may have been making his directorial debut, but he
has been poised for the move since he established a close
relationship with Hairspray director Jack O'Brien. "We have
been friends since we met in 1989 and had an amazing
collaborative experience on Hairspray," says Mitchell, who
also worked with O'Brien on The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten
Scoundrels, Imaginary Friends, and various national and
London tours.
Mitchell sees his nonstop style in Hairspray as a wonderful
warm-up to the kind of high-speed-train pace employed in
Legally Blonde. "Robbins told me to never waste a second,"
he says. "Audiences today don't like to sit still very
long--you need to keep the story moving." He is convinced
that choreographers are especially equipped to direct the
kind of fast-moving action that dominates today's Broadway
stage. And he's also convinced that having a dance
background has been crucial to his success as a director.
"Choreographers know about transitions. We know how to keep
a story in motion," he says. It's not the steps that make
the dancing in Legally Blonde so unique; it's more of a
"how" and "when" than a "what" type of creativity. We've all
seen (or done) these moves before--but on the football field
and the college campus, not on the Broadway stage.
Mitchell's choreography takes its cue from the American
landscape of drill teams, marching bands, and cheerleading,
with a touch of street dance. "I didn't need to look hard
for inspiration," says the choreographer. "It was all around
me. And I played football."
For this show, Mitchell purposely selected a movement
vocabulary that was familiar to his audience. The moves may
be the stuff of Americana, but the way they are integrated
into the story is entirely original. One example is Elle
Woods' team of sorority sisters, which shows up at pivotal
times during the leading lady's adventures. "After their
first number we thought it would be exciting if they kept
popping up as a kind of Greek chorus, a kind of play on
"Greek" [sorority] life," says Mitchell. "Whenever Elle
needs support they show up. It was a brilliant idea and just
seemed natural."
Even though the show includes a strong element of fantasy
(especially during the big audition number for Elle's
Harvard Law School interview), Mitchell aimed at
authenticity in the emotional tone of the show. For example,
the teamwork displayed in the dance numbers amplifies the
spirit of sisterhood that is central to the show's feel-good
message. "I wanted the message to be a good one for young
women," he says.
While Mitchell's career literally sprang from
the Broadway stage, Bill T. Jones honed his skills downtown
as a postmodern renegade.
 One of the foremost choreographers in the concert arena, he
has amassed a multitude of honors, including the 2005 Wexner
Prize, the 2005 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival
Award for Lifetime Achievement, a 2005 Harlem Renaissance
Award, the 2003 Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, a MacArthur
"genius" Artists Public Service Award in choreography, and
several choreographic fellowships from the National
Endowment for the Arts. His face also graced the cover of
Time magazine in 1994, for a cover story about his
achievements in postmodern dance.
Given his concert dance pedigree, Jones may seem like an
unlikely match for a Broadway show, but Spring Awakening is
hardly the usual fare. Based on an 1891 Frank Wedekind play,
the show focuses on
the sexual and intellectual coming of age of teens in
Germany. Nothing in the rule-breaking Spring Awakening plays
out like a traditional Broadway show, from the audience
members sitting onstage to the microphones that the
performers whip out of their jackets. Its bare-bones
approach includes few of the usual frills like moving
scenery, big dance numbers, and flashy costumes.
The show's movement choices needed the same idiosyncratic
treatment, and Jones was just the person to make that
happen. Jones is no stranger to minimalism or making dances
about controversial subjects, and Spring Awakening is the
kind of material that he has gravitated to in his career. "I
never want to grow stale," he says about welcoming this new
opportunity, "and the script was very touching." The
choreographer joined the creative team at director Michael Mayer's invitation in 2006.
"Mayer was familiar with my
work," says Jones. "He came to see a site-specific work I
did in Harlem that included dancers and nondancers; he saw
how I worked with non-trained movers and difficult themes.
Shortly afterward we began a conversation that led to my
work on Spring Awakening."
Working on a musical turned out to be an adventure in an
entirely new arena for Jones. Although he frequently
collaborates with composers and visual designers, it's
usually his name on the marquee; being part of a larger team
was a different experience for him. "It was a bit like a
vacation, because the director calls the shots," says the
choreographer. "It was very different than the world I knew,
like going to another country." That doesn't mean he didn't
work hard. Jones delved into the final shaping process,
making adjustments during previews and tweaking every detail
to give the show its polish. "One thing I took away was just
how rigorous the process is. I left with a newfound respect
for the genre. This is a very talented world."
In terms of talent, the choreographer fit right in, winning
a Tony Award for Spring Awakening's choreography (one of
eight Tonys the show won, including best musical). Jones'
new world came with several curious limitations. The
performing space was very small, the performers were not
traditionally trained, and the use of handheld microphones
limited the options for using the hands in dance movement.
But Jones' trademark style of crafting amplified gestures
from everyday life transforms movement into a symbolic
language. The result is a kind of visual poetry that speaks
to the characters' inner lives.
His postmodern signature worked perfectly in portraying the
inner turmoil of the young people in Wedekind's story. The
choreographer developed a recurring gestural phrase used by
both the men and women, later expanding on it until it
became almost unrecognizable. In this phrase, the performers
weave their hands along and around themselves in one long,
sensuous gesture, following the contours of a body in fresh
bloom. It seems to represent an emerging awareness of the
power of one's body, a key theme in the play. "I wanted to
show through gesture how a virginal woman's body speaks to
her," says Jones. "The gestures point to the inner life of
the characters."
When the young men repeat the exact same sequence with a bit
more muscle, the phrase reflects male angst with a touch of
sensitivity. The sequence shows off Jones' elegant use of
restraint. "I wanted to make sure that the story was being
served at all times, so no one person is too active," the
choreographer says.
Later, during a particularly dramatic section, Jones
expanded the phrase so that the arms move away from the body
in a frenzy of movement. "That's a key postmodern
strategy--to take the same phrase and enlarge it or
manipulate it," he says. Not all of Jones' innovation
involves hand and arm gestures. One of the most riveting
numbers in the show, "The Bitch of Living," is essentially a
loud, stomping dance. The full thrust of testosterone-fueled
teen energy can be felt by everyone in the theater. "At
first there was some concern about the volume level of the
stomping," says Jones. "Then everyone, including the
composer Duncan Sheik, thought it worked great."
With Legally Blonde and Spring Awakening thriving in their
Broadway homes, Jones has returned to his own home, the
concert stage (he is currently touring his acclaimed new
work, Chapel/Chapter), but he hasn't ruled out signing on
for more such adventures to bring his style to new
audiences. As for Mitchell, he is already at work on musical
versions of the films Catch Me If You Can and Mad Hot
Ballroom. And both Legally Blonde and Spring Awakening take
off on U.S. tours in the upcoming months--which means that
Broadway's newest moves could be in your backyard soon.
Director/choreographer Jerry Mitchell brought a
high-speed-train pace to Legally Blonde, and
postmodern choreographer Bill T. Jones put his unique stamp
on the dances for Spring Awakening.
Photos by Paul Kolnikand Kevin Fitzsimons, courtesy Wexner
Center for the Arts.
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