In the modern context, a musical for the general public can be regarded as a mixture of different art forms. It combines various genres of art such as dancing, acting, music, and stage mechanics. Among these, dancing can be considered as the most essential part of a musical, for it conveys strong messages, not through verbal communication, but with the body. The musical choreographers should understand the function of dance and try to express what is to be said with the body. They need to help their audience understand what messages the dance is trying to express. Therefore, choreographers need to create musical dancing focusing on every movement of the body.
In 2003, I went to see the musical “Chicago” by a British cast for the first time in my life. Until then, I had hardly heard of “Chicago.” As the musical began, I was surprised at the scantly clad actresses because I was able to see their body line. Frankly, I did not like erotic performances at all since they made me feel uncomfortable. So, even though I knew the fame of “Chicago”, I started feeling awkward. However, as the show progressed, I felt my interest growing. The British cast was wonderful: they were great singers as well as excellent dancers. Also, the movements of skillfully trained dancers captured my attention. They were not just making some erotic movements. I could identify ballet movements in their dance.
Also, the slow and erotic movements were in perfect synchrony with the dark mood of the musical. From that moment, I found I was engrossed in what went on on the stage. The costumes were plain: most of them were just black skinny clothes. The stage was plain: there was no ornamental stage set. Under these conditions, only the movements alone lit the stage. Or maybe, the plain costume and stage inspired the movements on the stage. By the time the show ended, I got addicted to the erotic movements.
When I came out of the theater, I had become a big fan of Bob Fosse, who was the choreographer of “Chicago”. Bob Fosse was the most talented choreographer in musical history and he created unique dance styles and made them original with characteristics of eroticism and humor. (Thesis).
Bob Fosse was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1927. His father was a vaudevillian, and Fosse was raised around his father’s workplace, such as, strip bars and vulgar theaters. Thus, he got used to erotic movements when he was very young (Zaremba). Of course, there is no wonder these experiences affected him later when he took up choreographing and the eroticism reflected in his work. He started studying dance in a small institution in his town, and later he moved to “Frederic Weaver” ballet school.
He started choreographing when he was a teenager. His first choreography, titled “That Old Black Magic”, comprised four dancers decorated with ostrich’s feathers in nightspots (Ro 9). However, he made his debut as a dancer on Broadway. His dance became popular for its fast steps and movements, and perfect techniques. However, there was a big physical problem for him as a dancer; he had a slightly bent back and pigeon-toes which made it hard to turn out his legs (Ro, p. 11). On the other hand, these physical problems helped him later when he choreographed.
I see my style as based on my physical limitations and I’ve developed, from them, a style because I’ve been dancing since I’m nine. (Gottfried, p. 81).
He learned to overcome his weak point and created a new style of his own. For example, the jazz walking, using the dancer’s shoulders rolling around while walking through the stage diagonally was exemplary of Fosse’s style (Ro, p. 20). He created this movement since he had a slightly bent back. Fosse’s jazz walking became the classic milestone of jazz dance.
Fosse’s style was also influenced by Jack Cole who was known as “one of the most prominent and influential choreographers in Hollywood during the post World War Π years” (Gottfried, p. 72). Jack Cole was the first one who brought suggestive movements into Broadway musicals (Gottfried, p. 82). Jack Cole’s influence was most evident in Foss’s style in terms of eroticism, but he also made his style adding humor that was unique and different from the former.
“Steam Heat” (1954) choreographed by Fosse became a great hit, and this musical made Fosse famous as a choreographer (Ro, p. 12). Then, he met Gwen Verdon who was an excellent actress as well as a great dancer. After meeting her, Fosse expanded his horizon into being a director and a producer as well as a choreographer and worked with her. Since then, all the musicals or films directed by Fosse emerged as big hits until he made the film “Sweet Charity” (1969). This was originally a musical produced by Fosse in 1966 and he translated it into the big screen.
As opposed to the success of the musical, the film became a box-office disaster. This was his first failure in his career. After the film flopped, nobody wanted to work with him for the next four years. Fortunately, in 1972, he received an opportunity to work on the movie “Cabaret”, as a director since other directors refused to take the film (Ro, p. 14). He made a big comeback with this movie, which became a box office hit and earned Fosse, an Oscar.
Fosse played a pivotal role in elevating the class of musical choreography. Before him, no music gained public attention for its choreography. Since his choreography was sensational, rather than any other actors or actresses, the element of choreography in the musical became dominant. Also, he made eroticism rise to the surface by adding humor to it (Ro, p. 23). He always tried to emulate a new style from the old one.
The last Broadway hit musical that Fosse made was “Dancin” (1978). It gained significance in terms of the fact that it was made as a dance concert in which Fosse suggested a new alternative for the future of old jazz and old musicals (Ro, p. 15). There was no storyline. From the beginning to the end, the audience only watched the dancers dancing on the stage. It was the first form of dance music that became very popular subsequently. Nowadays, there are a lot of dance musicals produced by famous choreographers. However, the credit for creating a new style in musical belongs to Fosse.
Fosse faced his death, which was caused by a heart attack, “twenty-three minutes after the curtain went up on the Washington, D.C. premiere of his Sweet Charity revival” on Wednesday, September 23, 1987 (Grubb, p. 273). He lived a splendid life as a dancer, a choreographer, a director, and a producer. He won many awards for his works. Especially, in 1973, he won all three awards in one year: the Tony Award for “Pippin” and “Sweet Charity”, the Academy Award for “Cabaret” and the Emmy Award for “Liza with a “Z” (Ro, p. 14). This record for winning all three awards in the same year remains unbroken.
He received several accolades for his works for originality and innovation and he had created his original movements that represented his sexy style. As an artist, Fosse was known for his thoroughly modern style, a signature one could never mistake for anyone else’s.
Snapping fingers are omnipresent, so are rakishly tilted bowler hats. Both hip and shoulder rolls appear frequently, as do backward exits. Swiveling hips and strutting predominate, as do white-gloved, single-handed gestures. Fosse himself often called the en masse amalgamation of these moves the “amoeba”, and that word as much as any describes his particular style, one at once fluid and angular. (Zaremba).
These are the unique features that enable a person to recognize that particular dance is choreographed by Bob Fosse. He was the bellwether in the musical field and always tried a new style, which nobody had ever done before him.
First of all, his movements strictly conformed to modern style. Whatever dance movements that he made were considered as contemporary style. He never copied anybody’s work, and never used the typical movements that were used for a long time. Whatever he made, it looked like the most contemporary style and became a new trend of that time.
Secondly, in most cases, he used props for dancing, such as a hat, a chair, a table, a bed, feathers, and a fan (Ro, p. 21). Mostly, he liked to use a hat because he was bald. The reason why he liked to use props was that he made the movements from the normal behavior of life. He pushed the boundaries of choreographed dance. If a dancer pretends to smoke, that becomes a movement on the stage. Every single movement that is performed by dancers on the stage is carefully choreographed, even the way the fingers move. Fosse used the props intending to exaggerate the movements to achieve a better effect. For example, how can one make the smoking movement appear to be real? If the dancer picks the cigarette with his fingers, it will look like a real performance. This is why Fosse has used props often in his works.
In addition, props were considered as the extension of the body. Fosse also liked to use a stick because the stick can be transformed into anything. For example, in the film “Cabaret” (1972), the Master of Ceremonies always has his stick in his hand. He dances with the stick and makes a funny movement with it. In this case, the stick looks like his extended arm. He can reach further with the stick. He can point out a dancer with his stick rather than using his finger. The stick is not merely a stick; it is an important part of the body that makes a special gesture. So, Fosse liked to use a stick when he choreographed. In the famous musical “Chicago” (1975), Billy Flynn, the lawyer, also carries his stick when he first appears on the stage and dances with it.
Thirdly, Fosse also favored the use of jazz hand movement (Ro, p. 22). It was typical Fosse style. A dancer, who wears white gloves, waves his hands or waves his fingers on his waist, and these movements were created since Fosse did not like to dance with empty hands. For example, in his autobiographical movie “All That Jazz” (1979), there is a scene called “Air-erotica”. “Air-erotica” is the name of the musical directed by Joe Gideon, who is the main character in the movie. In this scene, Gideon, who resembles Bob Fosse, shows a few scenes from the musical “Air-notice” to the investors to get the investment from them.
As the name of the musical indicates, “Air-erotica” has a lot of suggestive movements. At the beginning of the scene, all the actors and actresses wear light grey gloves and wave and move their hands. In Fosse’s works, usually, the costumes are very simple; mostly just black-colored clothing or too-small clothes exposing most body parts to the audience. Therefore, if the actors or dancers wear white gloves and move their hands, it will become conspicuous on the stage. As a stick I mentioned above, white gloves make a gesture that Fosse attempts to express to the audience.
Fourthly, if we have to define Fosse’s style in a word, it will be “eroticism.” As stated earlier, Fosse got used to the erotic movements from the strip bars or vulgar theaters where his father worked, from when he was very young. Therefore, it is quite reasonable that Fosse choreographed erotic movements for the stage much better than anyone else. So, we could easily find that the most famous musicals choreographed by Fosse always have scenes of cabaret or vulgar theater. In “Chicago” (1975), Roxy Heart wants to be a vaudevillian, and Velma Kelly is a vaudevillian. “Chicago” begins with Velma Kelly’s performance. In “Cabaret” (1972), Sally Bowles is a cabaret singer hailing from England. “Cabaret” also starts with the performance in the Kit Kat Club, which is a seedy cabaret. These factors point to the fact that eroticism is an element that has a strong presence in all his works, and later it became a synonym of his name.
Learning Fosse’s style is not easy at all for the dancers. His movements are, of course, very suggestive, but it is also hard to achieve the level of eroticism that Fosse attempted. To satisfy his intention, the dancers should have perfect skills of classical ballet. Fosse said, “In his dancers,” he “looked first for strong ballet technique.” (Grubb, xxiii). They should be great classical dancers before learning Fosse’s style. Fosse’s style is “just as hard as ballet, if not harder,” says Alison King, who completed a run as Lulu in Cabaret on Broadway at the end of 2002 (Mettler). His movements are very slow and look very simple. However, those need high-class dance skills to make them erotic as Fosse did.
If we closely look at his erotic movements, they are merely simple movements; stretching arms and legs, lying down on the floor, and walking. Do they look erotic? No, they do not, until Fosse gives his touch. His eroticism starts from the plain body line of dancers. He makes the dancers use their whole bodies and move slowly with appropriate facial expressions. Also, the scantily clad, exposing most of their bodies. So, the audience has a chance to appreciate their body line. Fosse’s stage is hot because the dancers barely wear clothes and they are well-trained dancers who can move their bodies as Fosse wants them to move.
Fifthly, Fosse believed “the dancers were always integral to the plot,” and hence the dance should be “a continuation of the story” (Mettler). Therefore, the way he approached the movements was different from others. He tried to express the feeling of the movement in descriptive language to make the dancers understand. For example, he told the dancers “like the toothpaste coming out from its container” or “like a racehorse running toward the finish line.” (Jeong, p. 61) It made the dance rich and vivid on the stage.
Lastly, when he choreographed a musical, he always made the movements somewhat humorous, so the audience did not feel awkward even watching the erotic movements in the big theater. In the film “Cabaret” (1972), there is a scene that the emcee sings the song “If you could see her.” At first, the emcee stands next to a girl wearing a wedding dress and facing back and starts singing the song. The song is about how he loves the girl so much. The lyrics are about how beautiful she is, how pretty she is, and how happy he is. After a few seconds, the girl turns around, and the girl is a monkey wearing a wedding dress.
When the monkey turns around, the emcee sings this part of the lyrics: “If you could see her through my eyes, I guarantee you would fall as I did.” The emcee lovingly looks at the monkey and runs his hand across the monkey’s face. The monkey is an actor disguised with a costume and a mask. However, the mask looks like a real monkey’s face. This is an example of Fosse’s humor. He made stages that surprise the audience. His stages are not always suggestive. However, there is a lot of humor that makes the audience laugh.
Fosse’s humor is very satirical. His movements always have a meaning behind them. Fosse tried to put a message through his dance. For example, the monkey scene ended up with these words; “She wouldn’t look Jewish at all.” The monkey suggests how Jews were discriminated against by Nazis. “Cabaret” is set in Berlin in 1931, when the Nazis under Adolf Hitler were about to rise. So, the lyrics do satirize the Nazis. However, in the lyrics, there is no word “monkey.” So, setting up the monkey for the girl wearing a wedding dress was Fosse’s idea. The girl could be a really ugly girl or a boy in order only to surprise the audience.
But, Fosse chose the monkey mask to maximize his sarcasm on Nazis. There is one more scene that satirizes Nazis in “Cabaret.” In the middle of splendid dancing on the stage, suddenly the dancers take off the flowers on their hat and straighten the tipped hat flat as military hats. Then, they start to walk like Nazis; raising their knees high, and moving their arms back and forth. Fosse made fun of Nazis through these movements in the film.
Bob Fosse was rightly recognized as the biggest figure in musical history because of the creativity in his works and the innovations he made in this art that nobody had ever done before him. Sometimes, his music makes the audience shocked because of the straightforward expression. Well, maybe he was laughing behind the stage watching the reactions of the audience. We never knew. There was nobody who broke the new records that he created.
Honestly, he remains a legend. He was the first one who earned all three awards in one year. He was the first choreographer who was more famous and popular than his actors and actresses. He was the first one who constructed one’s style in musical history. Now, he is not alive, but his works are alive and enticing us to watch them.
Works cited
Gottfried, Martin. All His Jazz: The Life & Death of Bob Fosse. New York: Bantam Books, 1990.
Grubb, Kevin Boyd. Razzle Dazzle. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989.
Jeong, Yeong-Mee. “Study on Jazz Dancer, Bob Fosse’s Choreographic Tendency.” Dissertation. Choong-Ang University, 2001.
Mettler, Lyn. “The Fosse Phenomenon.” Dance Spirit 7. 6 (2003): 62-63, 65. Research Library. ProQuest. Diablo Valley College. Lib., Pleasant Hill, CA.
Ro, Juwon. “A Study about Bob Fosse’s Style of Choreography in Korean Musicals.” Dissertation. Dankook University, 2002.
Zaremba, DFernando. “Fosse: an introduction.” Fosse.com. 2003.
All That Jazz. Dir. Bob Fosse. Perf. Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange, Leland Palmer, Ann Reinking. 1979. DVD. Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. 2007.
Cabaret. Dir. Bob Fosse. Perf. Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, Michael York, Helmut Griem. 1972. DVD. Allied Artists Pictures Corporation and ABC Pictures Corp. 2000.
Chicago. By John Kander (music), Fred Ebb (lyrics, book), Bob Fosse (book). Dir. Scott Faris. Perf. Juhyun Oak, Jeongwon Choi, Kiyun Sung. Korean National Theater, Seoul. 2008.