Clap your jazz hands — ‘Bob Fosse’s Dancin” celebrates a Broadway icon with a queer twist
Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ returns to Broadway for the first time in 30 years, joining the long-running revival of Chicago.Directed and staged by Wayne Cilento, who appeared in the original production, the revival faithfully reproduces some of Fosse’s most iconic works, including “Reflections of an Old Dancer” (set to “Mr.
Bojangles”), “Benny’s Number,” and “Big Deal” with a modern take that also celebrates queer identity.The Tony Awards, regretfully, have never acknowledged the hard-working ensembles that contribute to the art form of musical theater.
Imagine shows like The Pajama Game, Pippin, and Sweet Charity without their iconic dance moments.Fosse began dancing at age nine and grew up during the Golden Age of musical theater, making his Broadway debut in the short-lived Dance Me a Song (1950), but he quickly turned to choreography and created an entirely new dance vocabulary rooted in classical technique but pushing the form’s boundaries with hip rolls, sunbursts, broken dolls, and other unique movements.Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ begins with a prologue (delivered by the show’s most powerful triple-threat Manuel Herrera) in which the audience is told they’ll be watching a plotless musical.
The celebration of dance, in which “dancers are instruments,” moves swiftly amid scenic designer Robert Brill’s scaffolding, funky video design by Finn Ross, and richly saturated lighting by David Grill.
