Giving Dance a Voice in Musical Theatre

The role of dance in the Musical Theatre genre has evolved throughout time. In the beginning years of Musical Theatre, dance's function was merely that of entertaining the audience during a hiatus in the storyline. A quick change of costume or set design, or a pause in between scenes, was an opportunity to send the dancers on stage to liven up the mood with dances that didn't have much to do with the theatrical plot. Agnes de Mille's work as the choreographer of Oklahoma in 1943 changed the function of dance in Musical Theatre substantially. Through my research, I argue that de Mille was able to successfully incorporate dance into the storyline of Oklahoma. Through her choreography and its relationship to music, set design, costume and stage lighting, she was able to enrich the narrative and enhance the emotional content of the story being told. She proved that dance as a non-verbal form of communication has the capability of contributing to a narration, even if in an abstract manner. The presence of dance in Musical Theatre was never the same after de Mille's work in Oklahoma. Dance became an integral partof the storyline and the choreographer became an essential part of the artistic team. Her contribution to Musical Theatre has been so valuable and appreciated that younger generations of choreographers have based their reconstructive works on the original versions of her choreography. I based my research on historic documentation by scholars such as Scott Miller,Jennifer Homans, and Erick Neher. I additionally examined various video recordings of the many different versions and reconstructions of the dances in Oklahoma.