I wrote to the choreographer Marlies Yearby who choreographed for Rent and she got back to me with her information and thoughts on dance in musical theatre. She has given her viewpoints on dance in musical theatre, she is saying in that she wants to put her choreographer into the storyline more by telling the story through dance. She feels dance is mainly seen as a decoration, which I agree with and feel shouldn’t be happening and I think she doesn’t want that to be happening either, which is why she uses dance to tell the story in her musicals.

The main point of this information is Marlies explaining how she wants to see dance in musical theatre and how she shows dance is important. She also explained how dance has become popular but isn’t used as much as it should be.  The information she has given was helpful, as it has helped me realise certain things about musicals such as how a principle never used to dance as much as a chorus member compared to now. Or that how certain performers in musicals could be stronger at one discipline compared to another discipline. I had never thought about how it would come about rounding that certain performer to be perfect in every discipline for that musical. It made me think about the book and score and how it can be shown through dance and how it isn’t shown through dance in many musicals. This information helped bring my point of view of dance in musical theatre across as she agreed with and expanded on my thoughts of how dance could be used more in certain musicals. This information explains what is important and what is needed most when it comes to musicals. It is about the book inside of the music being shown through dance. But it explains that certain current musicals are starting to need more training in dance for the performers, so this means if they don’t have as much training in dance they may not be needed compared to other musicals that didn’t require the discipline. This information also tells us that if a performer that is fully rounded in each discipline were needed in all current musicals it could change the interest of people wanting to be performers and the training for a performer would change.

Marlies Yearby in conversation with myself states that;

“The book -the script and the story within the musical- “is the most important component of a musical. The score is the next component” -I feel this is true because everything a musical is based on and around is the story the music is the secondary thing that shows the story to the audience. Although this does show that dance isn’t needed or as important in musicals, because it isn’t needed in the early process of creating a musical, it shows dance doesn’t come first or second when it comes to being an important component, because singing and acting tells the story more in most musicals. Although since being involved in the creative process of a musical I have realised the script tells the story which needs to be written first and the lyrics also tell the story and feed into the script. Then dance comes after to create the performance and entertainment element. Although I feel if it was a dance based musical and they were telling the story through dance the order of the creative process would be different. As musicals that are based solely on telling the story through dance would need to create the music then create the choreography telling the story.- “As a choreographer my work tells the story of the book inside of the music.” -her work and the dances tell the story behind the music, so the dance tells the back-story of the character and the meaning of the songs. It could also mean it shows the lyrics and the characters thoughts through dance. I feel through looking at the dances within Rent the choreography is created for the characters, and a dance that a character would do would show off that character’s personality.- “This is not a typical approach of musical theatre where traditionally dance is more of a decoration or transition.” -This is saying she feels within most musicals dance is just shown as entertainment instead of storytelling. And she is saying her type of work is different to most musicals as she is bringing dance into the storytelling. This is something I would enjoy and am interested in seeing in the musical theatre industry. And I agree with her thoughts on dance being more of a decoration compared to singing and acting. This just shows in most musicals dance isn’t as important as singing and acting when it comes to storytelling.- “Musical theatre is evolving and over the time you can see works like RENT, Hair and host of others have shifted the role of dance.” -Musical theatre is evolving and musicals that use dance can be very influential on dance within other musical theatre shows. Dance is also becoming more popular because of revivals of musicals that have mostly dance in. These musicals bring a lot more dance into musical theatre and make dance a lot more popular. Although I feel most audience members prefer to be entertained by dance instead of told a story through dance. This is why musicals with dance as entertainment are more popular because the audience want to see that.- “However the trained artist for musical theatre typically is not well trained in dance.” -I feel this is becoming less true as dance is needed more within musicals even if it is just for entertainment the artist needs to be trained in dance. I feel this isn’t good and the artist should be well trained in dance; this shows that dance is not needed as much in musicals if they don’t need to be well trained in dance. I feel when it comes to musical theatre singing dancing and acting should be equal and every musical theatre artist should be strong in all areas; even if some musicals have less dance than singing they should still be strong dancers for the little sections of dance they have to do. Saying that you need to be stronger in singing and acting compared to dance just shows that dance isn’t needed as much.- “Usually the actors body and singing voice is what they have focused on developing.” -This shows dance is not needed as much in musical theatre as singing and acting through movement. What I feel she is saying here is the main focus of development would be singing and movement in acting. So dance would be focused on after singing and acting as they are the priority when it comes to developing a performer. Although dance could come under the actors body and movement in acting as it would be choreographed, if the performer isn’t strong in dance but strong in singing and acting this would bring their performance down as they wouldn’t be fully rounded musical theatre performer.- “However more and more the principal roles are demanding the body be able to move.” -This is saying more current musicals are movement or danced based so even the main characters are required to dance, unlike some older musicals where only the chorus dances and the principal roles are just required to sing and act. It also means current musicals are needing a full cast that can dance, which shows dance is becoming more popular in current musicals. This also shows that there would be big chorus numbers where the principal roles are involved and everyone are all dancing together, so this means a lot of principles roles would do a lot more dance numbers instead of just singing numbers.- “This can be challenging when casting for musicals where dance is more than entertainment.” -This is because a lot of the dancers would have to be good and technical when dancing as well as energetic with movement and performing in character with emotion, and some musical theatre performers might not be trained technically in dance, so there would be dancers auditioning with less dance experience than needed. It could also be difficult as you may find the perfect performer for the role but they might not be able to dance when the role is required to. It could make the casting process easier when eliminating people that are auditioning but it could be challenging to find a full cast of performers fit for the role that can sing, dance and act to the best ability needed for that show. Dance would be seen as more than just entertainment it would show talent and dance would tell the story more and they would be more emotion within the performance. This could also be difficult for performers who are used to being dancers in the chorus because they might not be used to performing or telling the story through dance. Instead of just smiling and making a dance piece fun and entertaining, it would need emotion and thoughts behind the dance to connect with the audience instead of just entertain them.- “It will be interesting to see how the training and the interest of the artist in becoming fully rounded in all areas will occur.” -This is talking about the training process of acting dancing and singing coming together in musical theatre. As in a few musicals it isn’t equally balanced as musicals can sometimes be mostly singing or mostly acting but very few are mostly dancing. This isn’t seen a lot so it would be interesting to see the process of professionally trained dancers to work as professionally trained singers and actors. I feel that there aren’t as many well-rounded singers dancers and actors within musical theatre but as musical theatre is needing more well-rounded performers there will be a lot more performers aiming to be strong within singing, dancing, and acting. Also as an overall musical theatre performer they would need to really be professionally trained in all three disciplines. She is also saying about how it would be interesting to see the performers/artists learning to become rounded and perfect in all 3 disciplines, instead of being better at one compared to the other. It would be good to see this in all performers within musicals. Doing this could change the future of musical theatre. I know a lot of musicals are equal in all three disciplines but it would be difficult to find all performers that are strong in all three disciplines who fit the roles well in a certain musical. Some musicals require professional singers but not professional dancers as that musical may not be dance based.-