Searcy 2018

Notes on Searcy (2018) Bringing Dance to the Center in Hamilton.pdf.

Discusses the detailed movement vocabulary developed by the choreography of Hamilton. Will be useful for discussions of semiotics in dance.

Hamilton is quite nearly danced through as well. 2

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small role in the musical’s reception. the PbS documentary Hamilton’s America, which lasts well over an hour, spends only thirty seconds on blankenbuehler and movement.5 in the thousands of articles and videos

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show’s creator, composer, lyricist, and star. many pieces about miranda celebrate Hamilton as a solo work of genius, a fully integrated, sungthrough Gesamtkunstwerk.8

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rhythm, gestures that evoke textual meanings, and a dense network of quotation.10

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the effusive praise of Hamilton as a sung-through musical with a unified artistic vision reflects a very traditional set of musical theater values. in

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ilton’s mother from “Hurricane.”22 instead of dance emerging from the words in order to finish the story, dance and words tell two different, overlapping narratives: in his words Hamilton seems to welcome death, while the dancers strive to prevent it.

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understood. though blankenbuehler quotes from hip hop styles, the choreography in Hamilton is relatively far removed in form, audience, and delivery from those same dances. 23 As thomas DeFrantz has dis-

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cussed, hip hop movements are often quoted in music videos and reality television competitions to signify “cool” to a generic global audience.24

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brewing. Klemons compared blankenbuehler’s system of dancing to a sign language in which tiny differences in gesture could have major implications in meaning. moreover, she argued, it can be easy for the movements to morph over time. by going over the meaning behind the choreography, the dancers are less likely to change it later.26

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work in a similar way. unlike most other broadway composers, miranda writes without a piano, instead beginning from a looped computerized beat.28 miranda records demos of the songs, which are then transcribed

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usually choreographers for musical theater shows start their work using a piano-vocal score, which blankenbuehler finds less satisfying, because they provide fewer interesting rhythms.29

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disgusted].”37 At the same time, the use of the choreographic trope to highlight Jefferson’s relationship to his slaves can reflect back disconcertingly on the staircase number itself, perhaps reminding the audience of the politics of the broadway stage.

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sion to orchestrate the song with a jangly banjo part. in quoting the movements and sounds of minstrelsy, blankenbuehler, lacamoire, and miranda make an analogy between blackface performance and burr’s relationship to Hamilton. blankenbuehler argues that using quotations

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including blankenbuehler and director tommy Kail. moreover, owing to the structure of broadway finances, it is this creative and production team, not the actors, who receive most of the profits from the show. As

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character. the music and choreography diverge the most in such scenes, where the focus is on the actions of individual men: “What’d i miss?,”

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tives lenses. Just as different documents tell different stories about the past, so too do the music and dance in Hamilton offer parallel narratives to the audience. the structure of the dance is the musical’s structure,

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