To Discover the Language of My Soul.....: From Michael Bennett to Agnes De Mille

Thursday, March 31, 2011

From Michael Bennett to Agnes De Mille

Bob Fosse teaching choreography to his dancers, from the PBS special about him

As a dancer, I study choreographers and their work extensively, from Michael Bennett's A Chorus Line to Agnes De Mille's Oklahoma! However, Bob Fosse is my favorite choreographer to study; from Chicago to Pajama Game, his choreography is unlike any I've ever been exposed too. Bennett used pictures; Fosse used isolations.

Michael Bennett working with his performers in A Chorus Line, from article on nj.com, 1975

I just find them fascinating, the way they can create something that lasts a lifetime.

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The Photograph in the Music Box

April 15, 1912

“They recovered two children that had been in first class. One was identified as Loraine Allison. The other was never identified.”

The RMS Titanic sinks after striking an iceberg in the middle of the Atlantic on April 15, 1912, taking thousands with her. Though the majority of the survivors are first and second class, and the majority of the victims third and crew, there were a few casualties among the upper classes that have long since been forgotten with the passage of time.

Among the casualties is a young girl; never claimed, she is later referred to as Victim 281 and buried in Halifax. All that is left of this innocent girl is a fading photograph in a music box buried in the wall of an apartment building in Manhattan- discovered nearly a century later by Shaynee Wilcox, the daughter of the new tenants. Armed with only the faded photograph of the young girl, Shaynee’s determined to discover
her true identity, and finally lay to rest the spirit of one of the Titanic’s youngest victims. As she uncovers clue after clue, Shaynee soon discovers that, not only does the girl have a link to the Titanic sinking, but she also has a link to Shaynee herself.

The Romantic Egotists

“I grew up among the great artists of Paris- Ernest Hemingway and his wife, Hadley; Ezra Pound and William Faulkner, Picasso, Gertrude Stein and her lover, Alice Toklas, and
of course my parents Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.”

It is with these very words, that Frances “Scottie” Fitzgerald takes us back to those long ago nights in Paris; when the
world was still recovering from the destruction of the Great War, when Russia was trying to reassemble the shattered pieces of itself after the bloody fall of the Romanov dynasty and Germany was allowing a man called Hitler to start taking control.

In Paris, the wave of painters, writers, dancers and playwrights’ crashes upon its shores like the Allies upon the European coast. Sex, drugs and alcohol run the streets of grand ol’ Paris, corrupting the mind and setting in motion the wheels of rebellion. It is here, in Paris, at 27 Rue de Fleurus, that a group of expatriate Americans meet and begin turning out some of the greatest literature, art and dance of the twentieth century. The child of the couple forever known as the “Romantic Egotists”- the real beautiful and damned- Scottie tries
hard to come into her own during those muggy Paris nights, despite the constant push and pull of her mother’s erratic behavior and her father’s egotistic criticisms. Here, among the sting of smoke and smell of alcohol, surrounded by lust, love and sex, young Scottie sips her first taste of jealousy, and
discovers the cost of being famous. Into this world, Frances Fitzgerald is thrust, a silent witness to the trials, tribulations, darkness and light of a generation defined as forever “Lost.”

The Sound of Sickness

"Sickness has returned.
Cover your ears and hold your breath.
Breathing in could result in death."

Alexi Michaels has been surrounded by Tuberculosis his entire life. With his mother, he places docent at the Waverly Hills Sanitarium to tourists in Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops, telling them the history of this sad and disturbing chapter in Kentucky's history.

That same evening, while taking a private night tour of the decaying building, Alexi meets Marit, a fourteen-year-old girl who resides at the Sanitarium while she slowly dies from TB. She's watched and waited for Alexi to arrive, spending decades within Waverly's rotting walls, a spiritual shell of the girl she once was.

Over time, Alexi begins to win Marit's trust, and using a series of family photographs, Marit tells him of her unfortunate story. She knows all the secrets and stories of the hospital, including those of her unlucky family members- both hospital resident and worker.

But Marit has a secret. A secret that sent her to an early grave. A secret she's willing to share with Alexi if he gives her something in return.

Something that, to Marit- like every other patient at Waverly Hills- is worth more than its weight in gold.