Dance in Musical Theatre: A History of the Body in Movement

From Oklahoma! and West Side Story, to Spring Awakening and Hamilton, dance remains one of the most important and key factors in musical theatre.

Through the integration of song and dance in the ’dream ballets’ of choreographers like Agnes De Mille; the triple threat performances of Jerome Robbins’ dancers; the signature style creation by choreographers like Bob Fosse with dancers like Gwen Verdon; and the contemporary, identity-driven work of choreographers like Camille A. Brown, the history of the body in movement is one that begs study and appreciation.

Dance in Musical Theatre offers guidelines in how to read this movement by analyzing it in terms of composition and movement vocabulary whilst simultaneously situating it both historically and critically. This collection provides the tools, terms, history, and movement theory for reading, interpreting, and centralizing a discussion of dance in musical theatre, importantly, with added emphasis on women and artists of color.

Bringing together musical theatre and dance scholars, choreographers and practitioners, this edited collection highlights musical theatre case studies that employ dance in a dramaturgically essential manner, tracking the emergence of the dancer as a key figure in the genre, and connecting the contributions to past and present choreographers. This collection foregrounds the work of the ensemble, incorporating firsthand and autoethnographic accounts that intersect with historical and cultural contexts.

Through a selection of essays, this volume conceptualizes the function of dance in musical: how it functions diegetically as a part of the story or non-diegetically as an amplification of emotion, as well as how the dancing body works to reveal character psychology by expressing an unspoken aspect of the libretto, embodying emotions or ideas through metaphor or abstraction.

Dance in Musical Theatre makes dance language accessible for instructors, students, and musical theatre enthusiasts, providing the tools to critically engage with the work of important choreographers and dancers from the beginning of the 20th century to today.

Dustyn Martincich is an Associate Professor of Theatre and Dance at Bucknell University. Her research interests involve investigating narrative, collaborative, and interdisciplinary possibilities in theatre and dance performance and musical theatre dance studies that focuses on the work of the ensemble. She has movement directed, choreographed, and performed for concert dance and theatrical stages. She has been recently published in Studies in Musical Theatre, and in edited collections like Gender Sex, and Sexuality in Musical Theatre (edited by Kelly Kessler), Dueling Grounds: Revolution and Revelation in the Musical Hamilton (edited by Paul Laird and Mary Jo Lodge), and Toni Morrison: Forty Years in The Clearing (edited by Carmen Gillespie).

Phoebe Rumsey is a Senior Lecturer in Musical Theatre and Course Leader of the BA (Hons) Musical Theater degree at the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom. She received her PhD from The Graduate Center, CUNY, and holds an MA in Performance Studies from NYU, an MA in Theatre from UNLV, and a BFA in Contemporary Dance from Simon Fraser University. A scholar and practitioner, her research has been published in The Routledge Companion to Theatre and Politics, Studies in Musical Theatre, The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical and Reframing The Musical: Race, Culture, and Identity (Palgrave). She is the author of Embodied Nostalgia: Social Dance, Communities and the Choreographing of Musical Theatre forthcoming from Routledge. Along with her engagement in academic studies Dr. Rumsey has worked extensively as a performer and choreographer.

Benae Beamon is a scholar and artist. Her scholarship focuses on religion, ethics, and culture, specifically black cultural expressions as they intersect with ritual and reflect moral imagination. Her work has been published in a few anthologies, including Queering Spirituality and Community in the Deep South and Silhouettes of the Soul: meditations on Fashion, Religion, and Subjectivity. As a tap dancer and performance artist, Benae examines the extraordinary and spectacular in the everyday, focusing on the way that the mundane can be sacred ritual. She has premiered work at various venues, like the Hudgens Center for Arts & Learning and ICA VCU. She holds a B.A. from Colgate University, an M.A. in Religion from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Social Ethics from Boston University.

Bud Coleman is the Roe Green Professor of Theatre and Associate Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder. A former dancer with Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, Fort Worth Ballet, and Ballet Austin, Dr. Coleman has directed and choreographed many musicals and operas. In 2008, he directed and choreographed the musical Company in Vladivostok, Russia, was selected to be a 2009-10 Fulbright Lecturer in Japan, and staged the Thai premiere of Fiddler on the Roof in Bangkok in 2017. Publications include Women in American Musical Theatre and Backstage Pass: A Survey of American Musical Theatre (with Pamyla Stiehl), and numerous articles.

Tome’ Cousin is a Full Professor of Dance in the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University. He received his MFA in New Media Art and Performance from LIU, and his BA in Choreography / Dance History from PPU. He is a childhood discovery of Geoffrey Holder and has appeared on Broadway, Off Broadway, national and international tours, tv, and film. His dance credits include the Physical Theater Project, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane, Martha Clarke, Meredith Monk, and Mabou Mines. For nine seasons he appeared as Ragdoll Tome’ on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. He is the author of The Total Theater Artist and New Media Performance, and the Franklin-Project-Interviews-Non-Traditional-Performance and serves as an artistic supervisor for the Tony Award winning director Susan Stroman. He has become a leading voice in the conversation of theatrical intimacy education and choreography.

Joanna Dee Das is an Associate Professor in the Performing Arts Department at Washington University in St. Louis and an affiliate of the Program in American Culture Studies. She is the author of the award-winning Katherine Dunham: Dance and the African Diaspora (Oxford 2017). With Ryan Donovan, she co-edited the special issue ＂Dance in Musical Theatre＂ for Studies in Musical Theatre. She has also published articles in Journal of Urban History, Dance Research Journal, Theatre History Studies, TDR, and ARTS, as well as book chapters in The Routledge Companion to the Contemporary Musical, The Routledge Companion to Musical Theatre, and A Critical Companion to the American Stage Musical.

Ramón Flowers is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Dance in the Jordan College of the Arts, at Butler University. He began his formal dance training on scholarship at the School for the Pennsylvania Ballet, and later attended the School of American Ballet. He was the first male African-American dancer to join the Pennsylvania Ballet Company. He moved to Europe as a principal ballet dancer with Maurice Béjart, William Forsythe, and Nacho Duato. He returned to North America to dance with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. He was also featured in several Broadway shows, national Broadway tours, film, TV, and national TV commercials. During his time away from Butler University, he teaches ballet, and Musical Theater Jazz at the American Dance Festival at Duke University. He received his BA in French from The City College of New York, CUNY, and his MFA in Dance from The University of Iowa.

Mijiang ＂M-Jay＂ He is a Chinese actor, director, choreographer, and musical theater educator. An accomplished triple-threat performer, M-Jay joined the Chinese national production of Cats in 2012 and 2013. While continuing to perform, M-Jay added professional directing and choreography credits to his resume. As an assistant choreographer, He joined Neverland: Peter Pan with Broadway Asia and China Broadway Entertainment, as well as productions of Murder Ballad and Fosse. M-Jay created the original Chinese translation of 42nd Street, which premiered at the Beijing Dance Academy, China’s premier music theatre training program. M-Jay was a visiting professor and director at the Beijing Dance Academy, teaching jazz dance, music theatre history, and musical theatre techniques. He also developed the musical theatre dance curriculum for the Communication University of China musical theatre program. He received an M.A. in Theatre at Binghamton University, M.A. in Dance Studies from Beijing Dance Academy, M.M. from Carthage College, and a B.A. in Music Education from Hunan Normal University.

Michael D. Jablonski is an Assistant Professor of Musical Theatre and Program Coordinator for the BFA Music Theatre program at Brenau University with previous academic appointments at Elon University and Florida State University. Michael serves as an Assistant Faculty member of Theatrical Intimacy Education with a focused research in elevating/evolving the consent-based practice in the dance studio/performance. As a professional actor Michael performed in 3 Broadway productions, 8 National tours and many prestigious theatre’s throughout the world performing in 50 states and 20 different countries during his career. He is an award-winning Director and Choreographer with credits that include Beautiful, Urinetown, Fully Committed, Footloose, Fame, Edges, Mamma Mia, Grease, The Producers, Hello Dolly, Eurydice and multiple productions of West Side Story. Michael holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre and Dance from SUNY at Buffalo and a Master of Fine Arts in Directing from Florida State University.

Nathan James is the Managing Director or The Dang Academy and former Director of HE Programmes at the Urdang Academy, London. A former dancer, he has sailed the high seas for Celebrity and Princess Cruise Lines, worked in several regional productions and appeared in the Broadway revival production of 42nd Street in Stuttgart, Germany. He is an international dance adjudicator for several organisations, an examiner for the ISTD, and has recently created a graded examination syllabus for young performers in Musical Theatre training. He was awarded his MA in Professional Practice from Middlesex University and a PhD in Dance from the University of Roehampton.

Ariel Nereson is an associate professor of dance studies and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. She is the author of Democracy Moving: Bill T. Jones, Contemporary American Performance, and the Racial Past (University of Michigan Press, 2022), as well as numerous essays about movement-based performance, race, and embodiment in the United States. Her research has been recognized with the Gerald Kahan Scholar’s Prize from the American Society for Theatre Research and, most recently, the Robert A. Schanke Theatre Research Award from the Mid-America Theatre Conference. She is also a practicing choreographer and dramaturg.

Adrienne Gibbons Oehlers is currently a PhD Theatre Candidate at The Ohio State University and a recipient of the AAUW American Fellowship for 2022-23. Her research interests are centered on musical theatre and ensemble work, focusing on unison, community, and constructions of gender and race. Her interest in ensembles stems from her professional experience in musical theatre, appearing in numerous regional theatres, National and European tours, as a Radio City Rockette, and on Broadway in the original cast of The Producers. Her work has been published in Studies in Musical Theatre and the edited collection Gender, Sex, and Sexuality in Musical Theatre: He/She/They Could Have Danced All Night (Intellect). Adrienne teaches musical theatre history, African American theatre history, and race and gender on the American stage as well as voice, movement, and acting.

Amanda Olmstead (she/her) received her PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Pittsburgh, MA in Performance Studies from New York University, and BA in Theatre and Dance from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. She teaches several classes in the Theatre department at the University of Pittsburgh, School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University, and the English, Communications, & Literature department at Golden Gate University. Her research focuses on theatre history, choreography, embodied dramaturgy, and performance as a tool for communication. She has published an article titled ＂De´veloppe´ Katherine Dunham’s Diasporic Dance＂ in the Studies in Musical Theatre Journal and continues to actively practice as a choreographer and director.

Kim Varhola is an Assistant Professor of Drama and Musical Theatre at Keimyung University in Daegu, South Korea. She has appeared on Broadway in Rent, Flower Drum Song, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Pacific Overtures, and on regional stages throughout the US. As a concert director, she has created events for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, East West Players, Kia Motors, Samsung, Sejong Center for the Performing Arts, the National Theater of Korea, and the Seoul Philharmonic. Kim holds an MA in Arts Administration from Columbia University, an MA in Cinema Studies from New York University, and a BS in Theatre from Northwestern University. She resides in Seoul with her husband and two sons.

Alexandra Joye Warren is currently an Assistant Professor of Performing Arts at Elon University and a Director/Choreographer for the Music Theatre program. She is the Founding Artistic Director of JOYEMOVEMENT dance company. JOYEMOVEMENT has performed regionally and toured nationally including Opening Night of the American Dance Festival and at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in collaboration with activist Bree Newsome. Alexandra performed, choreographed, and taught in New York performing with Christal Brown’s INSPIRIT, a dance company. Alexandra has been fortunate to work on projects with Bill T. Jones in development of FELA!, Paloma and Patricia McGregor’s Angela’s Pulse, Maxine Montilus, Sydnie L. Mosley Dances, Maverick Dance Experience, Van Dyke Dance Group and the Black On Black Project. She received her BA in Drama with a concentration in Dance/ Pre-Medicine from Spelman College and her MFA in Dance Performance from University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Kevin Winkler enjoyed a career of more than twenty years as a curator, archivist, and administrator at the New York Public Library, prior to which he was a professional dancer. He is the author of Big Deal: Bob Fosse and Dance in the American Musical, which won the TLA George Freedley Memorial Award Special Jury Prize, was a finalist for the Marfield Prize, and was cited as an ALA/ACRL CHOICE Outstanding Academic title; Everything is Choreography: The Musical Theater of Tommy Tune; and the forthcoming On Bette Midler: A Divinely Opinionated Guide (all from Oxford University Press). Kevin served as a consultant for Lincoln Center Education, curating resources to accompany PBS Lincoln Center Live performances available throughout New York City public libraries. He has blogged for the Huffington Post and is a MacDowell Colony fellow. Kevin is an on-camera commentator in the documentary Merely Marvelous: The Dancing Genius of Gwen Verdon. He holds a BA from San Diego State University, MLS from Columbia University, and MA from Hunter College.