By Matthew Wexler
Fifty years after A Chorus Line revolutionized Broadway, Cassie’s solo in “Music and the Mirror” still feels like watching a dancer bare her soul through movement alone. It’s the kind of theatrical magic Gotta Dance!, presented by The York Theatre and American Dance Machine, tries to bottle across more than a dozen numbers.
Gotta Dance! spotlights Michael Bennett and Bob Avian’s choreography, along with a broad range of Broadway’s best, including Bob Fosse, Susan Stroman, and more. The challenge in any theatrical retrospective is that we often lose the context that informs the work.
Co-directors Nikki Feirt Atkiins and Randy Skinner do their best to let the movement speak for itself, often curating numbers that can hold their own outside of the musical’s book, like “Teach Me How to Shimmy” (choreographed by Joey McNeely for Smokey Joe’s Cafe) and “All I Need is the Girl” (choreographed by Jerome Robbins for Gypsy.)
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The weight of that challenge demands that the 14-person ensemble not only execute the movement but understand why they’re moving in the first place. Broadway vets Jessica Lee Goldyn, Afra Hines, and Jess LeProtto, along with New York City Ballet principal dancer Taylor Stanley, raise the bar, while large ensemble numbers, like “Cool” from West Side Story and “One” from A Chorus Line, reveal a schism in the level of technique and maturity among the company.
Still, Gotta Dance! lives up to its name, featuring a seven-piece band, live vocals, and an exacting attention to detail, thanks to stagers like Baayork Lee, Stephanie Pope, and Donna McKechnie, who are passing along the legacy to the next generation of dancers.
In a lackluster season of Broadway choreography so far (except for Lorin Lattaro’s Cold War hot take in Chess), Gotta Dance! arrives as proof that some steps never lose their power.
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