The use of choreography and music in a musical is not only entertaining, but can illustrate the social issues present in society. Dance in musical theatre has changed dramatically. Until 1936 dance was used as a diversion from the story line. Agnes DeMille was the first notable female choreographer to use dance as a major plot device and central role in as musical. Since then choreographers such as Bob Fosse, Gower Champion and Jerome Robbins use dance to portray symbolism and add depth to the music and the lyrics (Miller, G 2014). Furthermore, Dr Larry A. Brown states "The addition of music to a standard play heightens emotion, reinforces the dramatic action, evokes atmosphere and mood in ways that words alone cannot." (Brown, D. L. A. 2014) The text determines the lyrics that are needed to add to the storyline, the characters emotion and the motive behind the song determines the tempo and style, dance expands on this adding symbolic meaning to the musical number. The choreography used in Annie's 'Hard Knock Life', Wicked's 'Dancing Through Life' and Hairspray's 'New Girl In Town' use dance as a tool to enhance the storyline of the musical. These three musicals will be discussed to show the extent of how music and choreography is used to create a musical number that is entertaining and conveys social issues. The Broadway musical Annie explores the social issues of homelessness and poverty. The choreography to the iconic song 'It's a hard knock life,' sung by Annie and the orphans, adds additional meaning to the song beyond acting and singing. Lilla Crawford, as Annie, guides fellow orphans through a song that is critical to the story. The orphans are displaying how they are aggravated and annoyed at the unfair c... ... middle of paper ... ...e Dramatic Function of Songs in Musical Theater. [report] Dr. Larry A. Brown, p. 1. Miller, G. 2014. Musical Theater Dances. [online] 2014. Available at: http://dance.lovetoknow.com/Musical_Theater_Dances [Accessed: 25 Mar 2014]. PBS Video. 2014. Watch now: ANNIE: It's the Hard-Knock Life | Annie: It's the Hard-Knock Life, From Script to Stage | PBS Video. [online] Available at: http://video.pbs.org/video/2365032177/ [Accessed: 24 Mar 2014]. YouTube. 2014. Annie. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J09mJiEUj_c [Accessed: 1 Apr 2014]. YouTube. 2014. Dancing Through Life/Elphaba Dance. [online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyEzuJjiua0 [Accessed: 28 Mar 2014]. YouTube. 2014. The New Girl in Town - Hairspray (Movie Clip). [online] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRi2T6mgH3Y [Accessed: 25 Mar 2014].
"Agnes DeMille Dances - Biography." Agnes DeMille Dances - Biography. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Oct. 2013.
On a Wednesday night I saw Texas State Theatre and Dance Department's performance of A Chorus Line. The main plot of the musical entails the audition of 17 dancers for several Broadway roles on the chorus line. However, during their auditions the director Zach asks for personal stories of each dancer's life. Though the plot of this musical is seemingly simple in its twist on the traditional audition, it explores themes that reveal the human experience, the search for individuality, and the sense of self.
What makes a good play or musical? Ask this question to five people and it is likely to yield five very different answers. Different people resonate with different accepts of dramatic expression. The first person to create clear-cut guidelines for analyzing a work was the Greek philosopher Aristotle. He defined what a good drama entails and wrote an outline that clearly delineates which elements good playwright should pay more attention to and which elements should be secondary thoughts. Aristotle’s Poetics put each of these elements into 6 categories; Plot, Characterization, Theme, Diction, Melody, and Spectacle. No matter when a piece was written one should be able to determine how successful or not these elements were executed and included in the work.
For the dancer, music and choreography are paramount. The music guides the dancer, and the moves express the music. However, the dance has to start from somewhere.
Through dance and movement, the storyline were expanded with the assistance of choreographer, Garth Fagan. A well-renowned choreographer for his innovative choreography primarily for Garth Fagan dance, Fagan used his unique style of choreography to the Lion King by combining a variety of Ballet, Jazz, Modern Dance, African Dance and Balinese Dance to suggest representations of nature without making a replica itself and use dance to help tell the story (Exploring the Lion King, 2010). Taymor’s idea of expanding the film by adding in choreographic elements not only will set the overall concept, it would additionally guide the visual aesthetic by allowing dance as the main element that balances musical numbers in all categories: effects, music and so on into the choreography (Bluemental et al 210:1999). Both Fagan and Taymor gave major contributions to the different styles of dance and performance techniques from around the world creating the precision and versatility that is being portrayed in the musical. In order to create the ideal staging of the hunting lionesses, flying dancers in the aerial ballet to the takeover of the hyenas at Pridelands, the collaboration between Fagan and Taymor gave suggestions of how these movements being performed with grace and poise using different dance styles and are cultural based be the forefront of the production(Taymor 148:1997). By looking at three notable dances in the musical, this chapter will analyse the presence of dance and movement being portrayed in the musical and how are these dances create the drama, still giving the idea of moving in an African Savannah. Furthermore, this will give an insight to all challenges and pitfalls both Fagan and Taymor endured during the development of the...
Ostlere, Hilary. “Taming The Musical.” Dance Magazine 73.12 (1999): 84. Expanded Academic ASAP. Westfield State College Library, MA. 15 April 2005.
Kenrick, John. Musical Theatre A History. New York: The Continuum International Publishing Group, 2008. Print.
The history behind ballet began in the Italian Renaissance courts of the fifteenth century. The word ‘ballet’ stemmed from masked ball. Noblemen and women in the Italian Renaissance were treated to lavish events such as wedding celebrations were ballet dancing and music was incorporated to be an elaborate spectacle. During this time in the fifteenth century, dancing masters aka ballet teachers (instructors) as we call them nowadays would teach the court who participated in the performances. Also during the Italian Renaissance, the wife of King Henry II of France, Catherine de Medici adored ballet and began to fund ballet in the French court. With funding the French Ballet court, Cathering de Medici added to the elaborate festivals which she included to have the ballet have a theme meaning costumes, music, poetry, and décor that went along with it. A century passed, King Louis XIV also contributed into popularizing the form of dance. During King Louis XIV’s reign, he was a passionate dancer and danced many roles himself....
Shusterman, Richard. "Moving Truth: Affect and Authenticity in Country Musicals." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57.2 (1999): 221-33. EBSCO Host. Web. 12 May 2014.
thesis of how the musical brought our inner child out to realize our true struggles in life.
In America, dance started as a social form. Typically, the dances that were popular during the time were correlated with how the people of the country were feeling. For example, in the 1920s, flappers would do the Charleston that consisted of flailing arms and legs in a patterned motion. This reflected their time in the speakeasies
plays to the drama on the stage – the music is used to develop and
The genre i have studied is musicals. A musical is a film which has musical performances from the actors to express their feelings. The films from this genre that i studied are 'Singin' In The Rain' (Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, 1952), 'Grease' (Randall Kleiser, 1978) and 'Hairspray'(Adam Shankman, 2007). I studied two characteristics of the musical genre (Breaking Into Song And Dance and The Grande Finale) that are shown in the films studied. The identifying characteristics of 'Breaking Into Song And Dance' and 'The Grande Finale" are always seen in musicals. These characteristics are expected to be in a musical by the audience and ultimately make a musical what we predict it to be, a film that expresses characters feelings through song while
Undertaken to determine what features make a song germane to the story in successful musical theater, this study outlines some characteristics of Shakespeare's use of song. Chosen from the plays with which the present author is most familiar-the early comedies-are three substantial pieces (each headed in the play by either "Song" or "sing," and each with at least two stanzas and refrain): "You Spotted Snakes," "Sigh No More," and "Under the Greenwood Tree." A close reading of the lyrics and surrounding text will establish the contribution of the song to plot, theme, and character, and a study of the form itself will support these aspects and perhaps explain the success of the lyrics in making a song.
In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the art of music appears in the opening of the speech as the unhappy and lovesick Orsino tells his musicians, “If music be the food of love, play on” (I.i.1) In the speech that follows, Orsino asks the musicians to give him so much musical love i.e. food that will “surfeit” and cease to yearn for love any longer. Shakespeare uses music in opening line of play and at the end by Feste singing his song. It reveals that Shakespeare has presented on stage a romantic comedy which is not detached from our everyday reality. Thus songs are used by Shakespeare with surfeiting desire not only for the purpose of entertaining the audience but also closely linked to the play’s theme.