by Kaz Gilbody 25103520
WONDERFUL TOWN:
For our final performance project, we as a company attempted to create a condensed version of Wonderful Town, book by Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov, lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and music by Leonard Bernstein (Leonard Bernstein Office, 2026). Wonderful Town is a musical that first debuted on Broadway in 1953 and is set in 1935. It follows two young women, Ruth and Eileen, seeking fame and fortune in Greenwich Village, New York (Leonard Bernstein Office, 2026).
On the 2nd of February 2026 we decided to focus on Act 2, whilst adding in a couple of songs from Act 1. After this decision was made, I picked the three numbers that I wanted to choreograph for this project, which were “Conga”, “Swing” and “Wrong Note Rag”. For this project I wanted to focus on making choreography that fit the energy of the songs and surrounding scenes and consolidates what I had learned from the two previous performance projects: Our House and Final Act (Ghost Quartet).
Our Wonderful Town project faced many different challenges throughout, and I learned a lot from the experience. I have also learned what I need to focus and work on for any future projects. This portfolio discusses and analyses my work as a choreographer on this project.
CONGA:
On Tuesday 24th of February we began with “Conga” and in doing so I arrived at lesson number 1: Always be prepared for a change of plan.
Before this date I had listened to all the songs, read the script, and thought about the kind of energy and look I was aiming for. I had planned to begin putting down choreography on the 27th February, as I thought we were scheduled to do the music on the Tuesday. In hindsight it’s obvious that plans change all the time in the industry and you should aim to be prepared for anything. I should have created my plan for the “Conga” choreography earlier. However, this did provide an opportunity to practice creating on the spot. Luckily, “Conga” was the perfect number for this because from research I had already done, I knew what would make up the bulk of the choreography; three steps forwards and one kick to the side.
I also knew what kind of atmosphere I was aiming for. The conga dance originates in Cuba from the early 20th century and has deep African roots. It was then popularised in the United States in the early 1930s and 1940s (Drake-Boyt, 2011, p.40). When searching for the correct energy I found that “conga lines are light-hearted celebrations that large groups of people can enjoy together in massed and unified dancing” (Drake-Boyt, 2011, p.40). That unified, party-like feel was the exact energy that this song needed, as a backdrop for Ruth as she gets swept away by the admirals and cadets dancing as she tries to interview them.
So, with the steps and energy already established, I only had to solidify the patterns and transitions I had been brainstorming. I learned from choreographing the “Baggy Trousers” number in Our House, that I enjoy using parallel lines, so for this number I challenged myself to use other patterns such as triangles, mini circles and semi- circles. I also explored interesting ways of forming straight lines and using those lines innovatively. For example:
This was three parallel lines, but they would dance in alternate directions:
This was a transition to a straight line, where the line at the back splits and moves to trap Ruth in the middle, forcing her to join the conga line:
This was mini circles that I used instead of simple clumps:
This was where the cadets performed the conga in a triangle instead of the traditional line:
It was later amended by lecturers for Ruth to come through the back to the front, which added another fun layer of chaos. I enjoyed the idea of a character interacting with the choreography as it helps the piece feel more cohesive. This is something I would want to explore in future projects.
Creating patterns helped enormously to add variation and was an invaluable tool to use, especially when I needed to put down choreography quickly. My patterns were still quite simple, and I would like to explore more complex and intricate patterns in future work. Overall, trying to create visually interesting patterns helped keep the choreography entertaining even though it was mostly the same step throughout, whilst still allowing the party atmosphere to be at the forefront. It has also given me a lot to consider in future projects as the patterns can benefit the story as much as the choreography, if done correctly.
Then we arrive at lesson number 2: Give an intention behind each step, and don’t try to fit one intention with multiple steps. The story should always keep moving forward.
I had tried to create a party atmosphere with the choreography but it was not quite working and I could not figure out why. This is something that I have noticed as I learn the craft of choreography; I can teach the steps but struggle to teach or create the energy of the piece, which often leaves my work looking flat. On the 3rd of March we spent some time cleaning “Conga”, and with the help of our lecturers I identified my problem. I needed to give each move an intention and give the performers a reason to move and to dance.
An example of this was during one of “Conga’s” dance breaks where the ensemble chases Ruth from one side of the stage to the other. My thinking behind this was that the cadets were chasing/goading Ruth to try to get her to join the conga, but it didn’t come across to the audience as intended, looking flat and as if it was just a transition to get to the next position. This was because I had used up that given reason to move by the first pass across the stage, meaning the second one felt unimportant and did not add anything to the story. The decision was made to cut the second pass and instead have Ruth turn and try to ask the cadets questions, which they then run away from. This added more depth as it gave the actors a different scenario to play, which makes the scene more dynamic to watch.
This change made this 2 counts of 8 section much more interesting as it developed the story. I have learned from the previous two performance projects that choreography should always serve the story, but this project taught me that choreography should also drive the story forward. Adding changes of objectives even in small sections of work, helps to create pieces that are more enjoyable to watch. Moving forward, I’m going to try choreographing with an actor’s gaze. With a script you try to find all the different tactics your character uses to achieve their main objective, and a choreographer should also find those objectives and reflect it in their choreography.
Overall, I think this was the most successful piece that I choreographed due to the detailed work that was put into it. It was also useful that I was playing Ruth in this number as it allowed me to experience the choreography from the outside and make further refinements.
SWING:
I had a clear vision for “Swing” and was well prepared when we started rehearsing. When creating this piece, I focused on it being story driven. The song tells the story of Ruth trying to get people to go to the club she is promoting. My vision was of ordinary people going about their daily business, getting temporarily sucked into this world of Jazz, giving an intention behind why everyone suddenly starts dancing, and then all walking off when the song finishes, as if snapping back to reality.
Some of my main inspiration came from the 58th Annual Tony Awards performance of “Swing”, with choreography by Kathleen Marshall, who has also choreographed for productions such as Anything Goes and Kiss Me, Kate. In particular, two moments from the 1999 – 2001 Broadway revival of Kiss Me, Kate’s 54th annual Tony awards performance of “Too Darn Hot” served as further inspiration. Each moment directly influenced a section of my choreography.
https://youtu.be/7beGIlIIQDI?si=3B7RDU1aXkGukyDq– Kiss me, Kate
(54th Annual Tony Awards Kiss Me, Kate, 2000)
The section from 1:16 to 1:27 showcases the feel I was looking for when Ruth sings at the beginning, with the ensemble using small, subtle movements that have that quintessential musical theatre jazz quality.
In the section from 2:07 to 2:20 there is an amazing triangle moment that I loved and wanted to recreate as seen here:
In the process of teaching and rehearsing this song we encountered a number of problems. One issue was not always having access to a mirror. I was very eager to perfect the small, subtle gestures as previously described. When we did have mirrors available, I should have taken more time to go over and perfect those sections, using the mirrors to examine ourselves, so that everybody could understand the timing and the feel of each movement. Instead, I was preoccupied with getting everything done in time and prioritised running the whole piece instead of working on smaller sections. I have learned that solely rehearsing the piece as a whole can keep a dance looking messy, and time spent perfecting smaller sections would have made the piece cleaner and clearer.
Not having rehearsal tracks was another significant difficulty. For “Conga” and “Wrong Note Rag” this wasn’t too much of a problem because I could find cast recordings on Spotify that matched the score. However, for “Swing”, I could not find a cast recording that exactly matched what was written in our score, so I had to find the closest one and make notes on where things differed. In the future, if recorded rehearsal tracks are not available or are unable to be recorded, I would find recordings from Spotify or YouTube, as I did for this project, but then check with a Musical Director that it matches. If it doesn’t I would need to find someone to help me mark out and cut the incorrect rehearsal track to make it match whatever score we were using. I now realise that having a correct rehearsal track is essential because, if it’s not right, it’s impossible to fix last minute.
This is exactly what happened when we started rehearsing with just the Musical Directors and the piano. Up until this point we had only practiced up to the dance break with just the pianos; we hadn’t had the chance to rehearse the dance break with the Musical Directors until the week of the performance. The problem was that the instrumental sounded very different with just the piano compared to cast recordings that included a full orchestra. Personally, I find dancing and counting difficult, so I had timed cues and moves to certain instrumental moments, which no longer existed for the final performance.
This video is from when we first learned the dance break, and showcases the original cues that we practiced to:
This led to some confusion for all the dancers, including myself, which I believe was detrimental to the quality of this section. With hindsight this was obviously going to be a problem, but at the time I was not able to read the score well enough to know that the piano score did not include these features and assumed that it would.
Although the dance break was not as good for the final performance, I was very happy with how it looked in rehearsal. For the actual performance, we found a solution for the missing trumpet cue that we had used to begin the main dance break. I was to count the eight bars that we had of transition, and on the eighth bar, audibly count everyone in. That meant that all the dancers could begin at the same time, and anyone who wasn’t in the dance break could get out of the way if they hadn’t already. It also meant that if I counted incorrectly, or if the Musical Directors were in the wrong place due to the immensely difficult score, we could all arrive at the same place as I had told them we start at figure “R”.
The problem after that was staying together and on time. I don’t think this could have been solved in the short time that we had. As a dancer I tried to mirror the dancers in front so we would look uniform, but this section ended up looking quite messy which was unfortunate considering the work everyone had put in. To prevent this in the future, I need to learn how to both choreograph and teach to counts, to help everyone keep in time.
Overall, I was very happy with the first half of “Swing”. I think it was well rehearsed, and the choreography worked well with the story. It could have been much neater and more refined, but I now know how to rectify that in the future. The second half was less rehearsed, but there were still some successful moments. A lot of work went into the triangle section that was inspired by Kiss Me, Kate and I believe that this was very successful.
THE WRONG NOTE RAG:
This was the least successful number of the three that I choreographed for a few reasons. Originally, I wanted it to be a tap number because the rhythms of the instrumental sections were so inspiring, but due to running out of time I scrapped this idea.
Instead, I looked at the historical context of the 1920s and 1930s jazz club scene and was drawn to the dance styles of the Charleston and Lindy Hop, and the idea of dance marathons.
The Lindy Hop was “a social dance that became popular in the late 1920s” (Spring, 1997, p.183) and is “a dance of African American origin” (Spring, 1997, p.184). The Charleston is another social dance that “became very popular in New York after it appeared in the show Runnin’ Wild (1923)” (Spring, 1997, p.183). Dance Marathons were “non-stop dance contests where individual contestants tried to set new hourly records by dancing longer than anyone else” (Martin, 1987, p.48). I wanted to try to recreate the energy of the dances and marathons that would have been present in jazz and dance clubs of the 1930s when Wonderful Town is set.
I envisaged the scene to show everyone doing something different, as would be the case in real life, and have the party-like atmosphere people would expect at a club. I wanted the moves to represent the simpler freestyle dance used by the average club reveller, as this number was more about atmosphere than spectacle.
I structured this dance so that everybody learned seven moves that each fit into one count of eight. The 8th count was used for a move that each pair had created themselves. Every pair would then start from a different count of eight, so that it gave the appearance of freestyle dancing whilst still being choreographed. Below is a video of the seven sections and an example of what the eighth section could look like:
I liked the idea; I thought it was fun. The performers were able to feel included in the creation of a piece which added to the impulsive vibe that I was going for, but at the end of the day it needed more time. It was put down too late, when all of us were trying to focus on everything else. I never had the chance to see it from the front because I prioritised rehearsing with everybody, meaning I didn’t have an opportunity to clean the piece. As the aim was not to be in unison, I hoped that if it didn’t look very neat it would add to the impression of regular people having a good time, but in the end it just looked messy.
If I was faced with a similar situation again, I would have cut the dance break. That would have left us with more time to refine “Conga” and “Swing”. The lesson learned here is that when you have a limited amount of time you should only take on what you can logistically achieve. I think the number would have looked neater and have been more entertaining, if we had focused instead on creating that atmosphere and perfecting what we already had.
CONCLUSION:
I think most of us would agree that for this last performance project we took on too much in too little time and then did not use that time efficiently. But looking forward I have learned a great deal, and I have gained perspective into the role of the choreographer in a musical theatre production. Before starting these performance projects, I had only choreographed a couple of pieces for my dance society and had no experience of choreographing for musical theatre shows. At the beginning, I was only thinking about what looked good. Now I have learned that I need to think like a director. Not only should telling and driving the story forward be one of the main focuses, you also need to work with the performers, thinking about the intentions behind each move, so that they have the tools to create character and motive. Throughout each of the three performance projects I have tried to incorporate these principles into my work, and I can clearly see the improvement looking back.
For future projects, I will keep all that I have learned as a tool kit, to allow me to further develop creatively, and build the groundwork to experiment with new ideas successfully. I will find the intentions and motives behind each move, and I will explore the use of different patterns and how they can be interacted with and used to advance the plot. I will learn from past mistakes and make sure that I provide the cast with all the tools they need to succeed and learn how to teach choreography in a way that allows performers to dance without music/different music if they ever needed to. I will also try to identify when work needs to be cut for the overall benefit of the performance, knowing that any unused work may have a use in the future.
Bibliography:
Drake-Boyt, E. (2011) Latin dance. Greenwood Publishing Group.
IBDB Internet Broadway Database (2026) Kiss me, kate – broadway musical – 1999 revival. Available at:https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/kiss-me-kate-9686 (Accessed: 28 Feburary 2026).
IMDb (2026) Kathleen marshall biography. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1240648/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm (Accessed: 28 Feburary 2026).
Leonard Berstein Office (2026) Wonderful town (1953). Available at: https://leonardbernstein.com/works/view/26/wonderful-townrnstein (Accessed: 1 April 2026).
Martin, C. (1987) ‘Dance marathons: for no good reason’, The Drama Review, 31(1), pp. 48-63. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1145765 (Accessed: 18 March 2026).
Nathanjames1973 (2020) 2000 54th annual tony awards kiss me kate. 5 June. Available at: https://youtu.be/7beGIlIIQDI?si=3B7RDU1aXkGukyDq (Accessed: 28 Feburary 2026).
Spring, H. (1997) ‘Swing and the lindy hop: dance, venue, media, and tradition’, American Music, 15(2), pp. 183-207. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/3052731 (Accessed: 18 March 2026).
