Analysis Of Robbins And Fosse

Fosse took a vaudevillian approach to his movement, specializing each body part as intensely as possible. Energy flowed from every inch of Fosse’s movement from his face all the way down to his toes. Robbins and Fosse had different approaches to the male and female anatomy of movement. Robbins saw the male’s physicality as useful and predominant in his productions West Side Story and On the Town when it came to partnering movements and bold/powerful expressions. Fosse idolized the female’s body and made the men more feminine, in productions of Chicago and Sweet Charity creating a juxtaposition between power on the sexes. They both used the emphasis of unified movement to create an instability in times of the changing world in their pieces.

It allowed the audience to view the body of a dancer or person in ways never portrayed before onstage as well as using movement to show larger ideas of social change. Fosse took his movement in his work to a more fantasized state through his perfectionist techniques, whereas Robbins created a heightened realism in his movement. Fosse, inspired by vaudeville, incorporates derbies and gloves as an allusion to hiding from the society we currently live in. Robbins takes society as it is and tries to find solutions to society's problems in the given moment they take place in. Both use emotions as actions as a commonality to approach their work. The core of Robbin’s work is shown in the descriptions of the action in each ballet. One can picture exactly what the dancers are doing and what makes this action unique. Fosse did this by making every movement so intense in detail that the dancer was forced into the sharpness of Fosse’s choreography. Robbins made actions and emotional intentions, his main goal for his performers as he believed in the actions in storytelling above all else. Robbin’s training at Stella Adler allowed him to see the perspective of the actor’s intentions more clearly than that of Fosse and also gained inspiration of bold and expressive movements from the teachings of Martha Graham. Stella Adler taught that “growth as an actor and

The people of the time period were still on their toes during the Cold War and were paranoid of a nuclear war outbreak. The movement was made to show there’s still hope despite the state our country is in. As tensions rise today, we must understand that live theatre tells a story of a new or old perspective on a given situation through the movement it conveys. The story can allow us to open up and look around and maybe fix the damage we are causing to our society on a day to day basis through our inability to accept people for who they. People are just people. Everyone should be seen as equal. Maybe we can change the world with movement forms. Robbin’s believed in social change in American through his choreography. As long as movement is seen as a universal form of expression, people will always be able to use movement as an outlet to express their views of the world and maybe change it. Anything is possible if one puts their mind to it. Although he stayed secretive about his religious and sexual views for the majority of his life, Robbins saw a world where he could come home to his family without the risk of being seen as an outcast to society. A place where traditions can evolve and love can conquer all, even in the adversity of the common people. The attempt to change society was made, but we need to figure out if that change stood the test of time to the American people. Hope will always exist in the stories