The choreographer Agnes De Mille and her views on dance in Musical Theatre

Agnes De Mille was a famous choreographer who choreographed for musicals such as Oklahoma and Carousel. I feel I agreed with most of her views on dance within Musical Theatre. The information I found told me about how she wasn’t just a choreographer she was a choreographer- director which means she was in charge of the musical so it was up to her on how much dance she would put into a musical. “The emergence of the choreographer-director was a major phenomenon of the Broadway musicals golden years in the 1940s, 1950s” Being a choreographer- director means the job of choreographer and director would work closely and almost together as one job role. This could mean the music being heavily dance-influenced or not much story, or focused on story telling without much dance, and when it comes to the songs in these musicals it would be very separate from the dancing and acting. This information talks a lot about how dance is normally used just in the background of a musical just to entertain which is a view I agree strongly on. As I feel audiences prefer to be entertained by dance. But I feel it shouldn’t be seen in this way I feel the dance should tell the story, which is something Agnes De Mille did with her work. Also she feels dance isn’t used to its full potential, which I agree with, especially within Musical Theatre. Agnes De Mille wanted the choreographer to be important, as she didn’t feel they were important enough, I also feel as though they aren’t as important as they should be. Although dance is one of the three disciplines needed for a musical I feel the choreographer isn’t seen as important as the director or musical director. Agnes De Mille I feel was a very influential choreographer. This information describes dream ballet, as an important style of dance in Musical Theatre it is also a famous dance sequence in Oklahoma that influenced dance in Musical Theatre. It discusses the time when dance wasn’t needed or used as much in certain musicals. It describes it well as dance wasn’t needed in some musicals but it worked, which I kind of agree with and I can see this point.  I agree with a lot of these views in this article because it mainly talks about how dance is seen as unimportant within musicals. And it shows my point of dance being in the background and not needed as much as singing and acting.

“Dance flourished in the 1920s, both social dancing and show dancing, and it was strongly influenced by African American dance” this shows that the popularity of dance had a big influence on musical theatre in that time, this shows the audience has a big input. With dance being popular in the 20s it made dance-based musicals popular. It still influences musical theatre now and the African American style dance has a strong influence on musicals as we see in Lion King. “The robust influences of social and jazz dancing in the 1920s fed into Broadway musical comedy”. This shows a lot of styles of dance influenced musical theatre. “dance had a subsidiary rather than primary role in Broadway shows” even though dance was popular it still wasn’t a main feature in a musical, so dance was there only to assist the singing and the acting. This is why I feel dance takes a back seat in musical theatre because it isn’t seen as important compared to singing and acting. It was just seen as an addition to the shows something good to look at “it provided embellishment, could stir an audience with its existing rhythms and alluring girls, but it possessed a limited sense of what choreography could do”. This means the dance and choreography wasn’t being used or shown to its best ability. “Musicals of that time had both a singing chorus and a dancing chorus” which is something we do not see now the singing and dancing chorus have merged together, which shows dance back then was slightly more important than dance in current musicals, although after this era it had a small role. Up until the 1940s “dance had played a generally peripheral or subordinate role” in American musicals dance wasn’t an important role and wasn’t needed. “But de mille put it at the dramatic centre of musical comedy” which is something I would like to see more and in more musicals. As a choreographer De Mille wanted dance to be an important part in musical theatre, she didn’t want her choreography just as an entertaining piece of dance. She integrated “it smoothly with the development of the story”.

She made the role of a choreographer important and not as unequal as it used to be with directors being more powerful “she gave the choreographer an importance previously reserved for stars, directors, and great-name producers”. The role of choreographer and director then would become equal “she prepared for the arrival of the choreographer-director”. “The choreographer-directors did much of the best and most innovative work on Broadway in the decades that followed” those musicals would then become influential to current musicals.

The musical ‘Oklahoma’ that Agnes De Mille choreographed for, “established the “musical play” and the “integrated musical”, in which, music, story, and dance were interwoven into a single esthetic impulse”. This was the first musical that showed singing, dancing and acting as equals. And it was very influential and successful. “It transformed Agnes for a time into the most famous and talked about theatre choreographer in the world and made dance a vital force in the musical.” I feel this musical is equal because as well as having monologues and solo songs it has a dance sequence “it was the eighteen-minute dream ballet, “Laurey makes up her mind,” that left audiences stunned and lifted Oklahoma! Into greatness”, which also wasn’t seen or done before this musical. This ballet scene created tension and deepened character conflict.

“Agnes was not the first to use a dream ballet in a Broadway musical” but not many people knew this because of how unpopular those musicals are compared to how popular Oklahoma was, not many people had seen dream ballet before this. But unlike Oklahoma “none of these probed deeply into the inner psychic life of a central character, or advanced the plot appreciably”. But this shows that there are other people that want to make dance as important as singing and acting in musicals like Agnes. The dream ballet in Oklahoma had a massive influence on dance within musicals “influence of Agnes’s dream ballet was phenomenal; for years it was as if every self-respecting musical had to have a dream ballet”.

The musical “carousel did not contain as many dances as Oklahoma!, but those that were used were splendid.” This shows that dance in musicals weren’t used as much at this stage but even if there was little dancing in this musical it was an important dance, and it did still have a ballet number in it “the principle dance number was a long ballet near the end”. This shows that Oklahoma was still influential in the dance area. “the sensitive ballet in its first version lasted an extraordinary hour and fifteen minutes, but by the time of tryouts in Boston it had already been cut to forty minutes- and would be scaled down further for Broadway” this shows dance was important in telling the story of this musical even if dance it is not seen much.

Agnes agreed to choreograph the musical Brigadoon, which had a Scottish theme to it as it was set in Scotland so the style of dance she wanted to use was Scottish dancing. “To prepare the dance, Agnes studied Scottish highland culture extensively” and she studied “everything about the type and styles of Scottish dance”. This shows Agnes had a big effect on dance in musical theatre she even brought a new dance style into a musical. “She studied with all the Scottish dancers she could find in New York until she was able to choreography the various highland dances expertly.” This musical did have other varieties of dance involved including “an exuberant jig”, “a drunken reel providing comic relief, to the slow, romantic” dance that was “a love ballet”. There was so much singing and dancing in this musical and the storyline was interwoven “for it was impossible to say where the music and dancing leave off and the story begins”.