"When Jerry Mitchell arrived in New York in 1980, the dance community was in crisis. Young dancers and choreographers, who like Mitchell had moved to the city with big Broadway dreams, were being mowed down by the AIDS epidemic. In 1987, the seven-time Tony-winning director and choreographer of A Chorus Line, Michael Bennett, died after battling the disease. Two years later, the legendary Alvin Ailey died from an AIDS-related illness. By the mid-'90s, Ron Field, Joe Layton, Chris Chadman, and numerous other Broadway dancers and choreographers had also died."
""I witnessed Broadway's dance representation go away," Mitchell says. He recalls how, with a dwindling number of dancers and a growing stigma around physical touch, dance itself was being carved out of shows as well. "Dance, in its deepest soul, is speaking through physical contact," Mitchell says. "You're touching. You're feeling. It's extremely sensual, and dancers' bodies are sexual. That was being taken out of musicals. Musicals were becoming the sung-through British musicals with no touching. Cats being the only exception, and then they were all covered in unitards.""
"By the spring of 1992, Mitchell, who was regularly performing in The Will Rogers Follies on Broadway, was eager to fight back against both the epidemic laying waste to his community and the new stigma associated with dance. So when a friend suggested he perform a burlesque number at the Chelsea gay bar Splash to raise money for the charity Broadway Cares, a light bulb went off. Mitchell called up seven fellow dancers, asking if they'd join in his strip show."
""It was a rainy Sunday, and there was a line around the block," Mitchell remembers. "We did the show, and the place went crazy. We w"
In 1980, the New York dance community faced a crisis as AIDS killed young dancers and choreographers pursuing Broadway careers. Michael Bennett died in 1987 after battling the disease, and Alvin Ailey died in 1989 from an AIDS-related illness. By the mid-1990s, additional Broadway dancers and choreographers had also died. Jerry Mitchell described Broadway dance representation shrinking as stigma around physical touch led to dance being removed from musicals. He said dance relies on physical contact and sensual expression, but musicals increasingly avoided touching. In 1992, Mitchell organized a burlesque number at the Chelsea gay bar Splash with seven dancers to raise money for Broadway Cares, using entrance fees to support essential services for people living with HIV and other critical illnesses.
Read at Advocate.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]