Ultimate `Fosse dancer' keeps the dances alive

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The show goes on

"Fosse" opens at Seattle's Paramount Theatre on Tuesday and runs Tuesday-Sunday through Aug. 6. $21-52. 206-292-ARTS.

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There was a time, a very special time in Broadway musical theater's golden days, when Gwen Verdon was the ultimate "Fosse dancer."

It was Verdon whose winking slink through the leggy seduction of "Whatever Lola Wants" stole the show in "Damn Yankees," one of Bob Fosse's first choreographic triumphs.

And it was Verdon who injected pizazz and vulnerability into the role of streetwalker Charity Hope Valentine in Fosse's inspired staging of "Sweet Charity."

And again the saucy, nimble Verdon, who minted the part of a homicidal doxy called Roxy in "Chicago," another Fosse winner.

You won't see Verdon shake a leg in the current Broadway touring revue, "Fosse," which comes to the Paramount Theatre this week. But you will see some of the signature numbers she originated.

And as the show's artistic advisor, her finger and toe prints are all over this 1999 Tony Award-winning production - a high-octane homage to the driven theatrical genius who was Verdon's frequent artistic collaborator, and her husband for more than 20 years.

From her East Coast home, Verdon explained recently how she helped develop "Fosse" in close partnership with two other great dancers associated with the late choreographer-director: Chet Walker and Seattle-area native Ann Reinking.

"Chet and I spent a long time training dancers and hoping we could find good ones who had ballet technique, modern dance, tap, and who weren't just blank, but personalities," Verdon noted.

"We got a good group of 40 dancers together and did a workshop. But I knew we needed somebody like Ann to come in and make a real show out of it, so it wasn't just one number after another."

Working with Walker and co-directors Reinking and Richard Maltby Jr., Verdon had plenty of good Fosse footwork to revive. It's no wonder: He worked in various media, and was the first director in history to win an Oscar, a Tony and an Emmy in a single year (1973, for "Cabaret," "Pippin" and "Liza with a Z").

In addition to the classic numbers he concocted for "Sweet Charity," "Chicago" and "Damn Yankees," Fosse made memorable dances for many other hit Broadway tuners ("Bells Are Ringing," "Pippin," "Little Me," etc.).

And there were intriguing numbers from the films he directed ("Cabaret" and "All That Jazz"), from TV variety specials, and from his exuberant 1987 Broadway revue, "Dancin!"

"We all agreed that since there's no book in `Fosse' we had to use real performing numbers, not dance routines that needed to be explained," Verdon said. "Like `Steam Heat' from `The Pajama Game' - you don't need any set-up for that. Or `Big Spender' from `Sweet Charity.'

"But we wound up with so much more than we could use. For instance, there was a number called `Cool Hand Luke' created for a Bob Hope TV show. It was a trilogy of three little dances, and we had to cut out two of them."

What ended up in "Fosse" was enough to provide a full evening of sinuous, herky-jerky, buoyant and witty hoofing, performed in the jazzy movement idiom that influenced many other Broadway dancemakers (including Michael Bennett and Tommy Tune), but remains Fosse's own.

Verdon was already a budding musical-theater star before she became the perfect vehicle for that idiosyncratic style of show-dance.

Raised in Southern California, where her mother was a dancer, Verdon first studied ballet but grew bored with it. Then, at 18, she was exposed to the work of Jack Cole - an innovative stage and film choreographer and teacher, who was also a major influence on Fosse.

Verdon calls Cole "an absolute genius. He brought jazz, really African dance, into high-heeled shows. He was into the sexuality of women as strong, almost masculine. That really comes through in that famous dance he made for Rita Hayworth in the movie,`Gilda.' "

After moving to New York, and assisting Cole on some shows, the flame-haired, vivacious Verdon got her own big performing break as a Parisian dance-hall girl in the musical "Can-Can."

"It was perfect for me because I'd done acrobatics and tumbling," she noted. "If they wanted a jumping split or cartwheel, I'd just do it."

Verdon remembers first meeting Fosse in Hollywood, on a movie lot. But their personal and professional paths didn't merge until 1955, when she won the role of Lola, the vampy assistant to the Devil in "Damn Yankees."

"The first thing Bob ever taught me was the `Whatever Lola Wants' dance. He said, `I'll do it, see what you think.' Well, I was totally enamored with it. It was so funny-sexy. But I never did it as well as he did!"

After the success of "Damn Yankees" on stage and screen, Verdon went on to star in more Fosse shows (her favorite was "Redhead," one of the least popular). She also became Fosse's third wife (in 1960) and his assistant when he was devising numbers for other dancers.

Though Verdon and the hard-drinking, chain-smoking, womanizing director agreed on a marital separation in the 1970s, they never divorced and continued their close working relationship.

"I'd just help him see what a dance he was putting together looked like," she recalled. "Bob was very exact about what he wanted. But it was fun to be in the rehearsal room with him, too.

"His dances were very strong and balletic, but also very athletic. And I think he opened up everybody's eyes to the fact that sensuousness, eroticism - it's all part of us as people. He didn't say, `Now I'm going to do a sexy dance.' Mostly he just thought everything he was doing was fun."

Over the years, he refined his own movement vocabulary and hipster-vaudevillian attitude, which are much in evidence in "Fosse."

Favorite Fosse moves include "the zonk" (leaning way back, with one leg stretched forward), "the drip" (hands dangling loosely at the wrist), "the amoeba" (an organic, changeable cluster of dancers) and "the slouch" (slumping forward at the waist, arms hanging limply).

"For about two weeks, this movement seems very strange on your body," confided Verdon. "You use so many parts that are usually held rigid, especially the pelvis.

"Bob used the pelvis a lot, and modern dancers could pick that up because they called it a contraction and release. But it takes a while for it to feel natural."

"Fosse" had a successful debut on Broadway in the 1998-99 season, on the heels of a smash "Chicago" revival co-starring Reinking. Both shows won Tony Awards, and both are still playing - in New York and on tour.

Verdon says she's not surprised that Fosse (who died suddenly in 1987 of a heart attack, at age 60, as the two were working on a "Sweet Charity" revival) is being rediscovered by fresh generations of dancers and theatergoers.

"I knew all along that his work just could not die," she maintains. "But I didn't like the way people were reproducing the dances. I thought, he just can't be remembered for deliberate distortion of the body, which is what it looks like if you don't get it right."

At 74, Verdon stays busy with acting ("I was just in `Bruno,' a film Shirley MacLaine directed."). And she's close to her daughter Nicole, and her three grandchildren.

But Verdon continues to tend the Fosse flame. And she is already looking forward to toiling on "Fosse II," a planned sequel revue.

"We can't do it while `Fosse I' is touring," she explained, "because we'd create competition with ourselves. But it's going to be fun putting it together. There's still so much material left to draw on."