Reviving Bob Fosse's 'Dancin' calls on body memory for fuel

Choreographer Wayne Cilento faced an uphill task planning a revival of Bob Fosse’s revue “Dancin' for Broadway

Choreographer Wayne Cilento faced an uphill task leading the new Broadway revival of Bob Fosse's revue “Dancin'” — no video had been made of the original show, there was no script to study and none of the steps had been recorded.

Fortunately, Cilento had a secret weapon: Much of it was in his body.

Cilento was one of the 16 original dancers when the show landed on Broadway in 1978 and many steps were still lodged in his limbs. “There’s definitely muscle memory,” he says. “I actually can see myself doing it.”

This spring, he has been tasked to not only direct Fosse's original vision for Broadway but also update it, both honoring the late theater legend and also pulling the show into 2023.

“The curse of all curses is what would Bob do today? So if it wasn’t me and it was Bob doing ‘Dancin’' today, how would he go about it?" Cilento says.

“It’s kind of like taking him apart and trying to figure out what was going on in his head. There was always something going on in his head. He always had a purpose for why he was doing that particular movement and that number.”

“Dancin'” is a series of unconnected dance pieces that includes a variety of styles — ballet, soft-show, jazz — with a few big scenes pushing the dancers to the limit. Cilento calls it a rock ‘n’ roll show, a dance concert and a theatrical event all rolled into one.

Performances of the newly named “Bob Fosse’s ’Dancin’″ begin March 2 at the Music Box Theatre, with an opening night set for March 19.

The original had a four-year run from 1978 to 1982 and won two Tony Awards, including best choreography. It has dances set to songs from a variety of sources, including Neil Diamond, Dolly Parton, Jerry Jeff Walker and John Philip Sousa.

The first step was to reconstruct the original. The reboot uses Cilento's memories as well as those of Christine Colby Jacques, who was an original understudy, meaning she learned all the parts. Footage was watched of a taping from Japan as well as a non-Equity national tour, although that cut numbers and didn't have any original cast members.

“It’s a very complicated process, that’s for sure,” says Cilento. Fosse himself seemed to foreshadow the trouble ahead, telling The New York Times in 1978: “Some of my best work we’ll never see again. There’s just no way of reconstructing it.” Fosse died in 1987.

Cilento cut the original show from three acts to two, sliced some numbers that were fun but not moving it along and boiled down a section in which each dancer steps forward to introduce their dances.

“It’s not going to work the way it was done 45 years ago,” he says. “I think at that time that was a brilliant concept, but I didn’t think the audience of today would have the patience.”

Cilento removed, but he also added: A ballet made up of vignettes about a man coming to the city for the first time that was cut before Broadway years ago has been restored. Each section honors Fosse by nodding to the styles of his various shows, like “Sweet Charity” and “Liza.” Cilento also leans into Fosse's film career and has envisioned the stage as a soundstage, making “Dancin'” more cinematic.

“This is not about me. I’m directing it. I’m honoring him. It’s his work — transitions, anything. It’s all him,” Cilento says. “It’s what I think he would have done.”

So intense is the physicality required that Cilento split his old part and gave it to four dancers. “I don’t think I sat down once,” he says, laughing. “I felt it would be uneven and unfair to give one dancer what I did.”

Ioana Alfonso, a veteran actor and dancer who has performed in “Wicked” and “The Wiz Live!,” says Cilento has given her and his dancers the opportunity to reinvent the work while remaining true to it.

“It’s been a real treat to be able to dive into the material with someone who is also embracing our individuality and our uniqueness and our artistry as we bring it to the table, while also very much honoring Fosse and his work,” she says.

Cilento is hoping to widen the audience's understanding of Fosse, whose popular legacy is mostly made up of lots of bowler hats, angular hip thrusts and shrugging shoulders, thanks to his inspiration behind “Chicago.”

“I feel like my obligation to Bob is to expose him for what he really was. And he was an amazing dancer in all styles,” he says. “'Dancin'' was like Bob’s opportunity to do a freedom of expression of dance.”

“Dancin'” was an important show for Cilento, who earned a Tony nomination for his work. He had previously auditioned for Fosse for “Chicago” but didn't get a part and was doing “The Act” with Liza Minnelli when Fosse collaborator Graciela Daniele urged Fosse to audition Cilento. Cilento did audition, but didn't think much of it until opening night of “The Act.”

“I see him in the audience and I almost fainted on the stage and then I ran into him at the party and he said, ‘I want you.’ And I said, ‘What?’ ‘I said, I want you for the show.’”

Cilento would go on to win a Tony for choreographing “The Who's Tommy” and accumulate a list of hit shows, including “Wicked,” “Aida” and “How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying” starring Matthew Broderick.

But returning to “Dancin'” proved a time travel. “I was so emotional," he says. "Every time I put something that I did on dancers, it just threw me back. A wave just hit me. It was like really intense for me to see it out there.”

Alfonso has felt that — a vibration during rehearsals and an otherworldly energy. “I do feel like there are ghosts among us at all times,” she says. ___

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits