← BroadwayRadio
BroadwayRadio
Special Episode: Fabian Aloise on ‘Sunset Blvd.’s’ two styles of choreography
00:28:51
On today’s episode, Matt Tamanini is in conversation with Fabian Aloise, whose choreography can currently be seen on Broadway in the revolutionary revival of ‘Sunset Blvd.’ Fabian discusses the two very different styles of choreography utilized in this...
Loading summary
Transcript26 lines
- [00:07]
Matt Tamini
Welcome to a very special interview episode of Broadway Radio. My name is Matt Tamini. On today's episode, I'm in conversation with the choreographer of the biggest hit on Broadway right now, Sunset Boulevard. I'm speaking with the incredible Fabian Aloise. Fabian has had a working relationship with director Jamie Lloyd for a number of years, going back to their first production together of Vida at the region's Open Air park in London. They are also currently working together on their production of the Tempest starring Sigourney Weaver over in London. And one of the first things I wanted to ask Fabian about was how they work together, because if you've seen Sunset Boulevard, there is almost no way to be able to tell the difference between what is blocking and what is choreography. And it makes the show magical. We have a great conversation, so check that out. But of course, if you need to know how to buy tickets to Sunset Boulevard if you didn't know you needed them already, I will have a link in the show notes as well as information on where. Where you can follow Fabian and his work. All right, with all of that out of the way, here's my conversation with Fabian. Aloise Fabian, you've worked with Jamie Lloyd now on multiple occasions, and in general, but especially in Sunset, where does the blocking end and the choreography start? Because I'm not an expert, but I could see no separation between the two. It seemed incredibly seamless in this production.
- [01:36]
Fabian Aloise
Well, that is probably one of the best compliments I could get, actually, because Jamie and I are very close, actually. We call ourselves brothers all the time, and we've been friends for a long time, and we actually strive for our collaboration to be exactly that. I think the best way to describe that sort of collab that we have is that we're in each other's business the entire time. So the reason I think it's as seamless as you say is because.
- [02:10]
Matt Tamini
We.
- [02:11]
Fabian Aloise
Don'T go off into our own corners and then come back and piece it together. We're very much. I'll be watching the scenes that he's directing. He'll be watching the stuff that I'm choreographing, and. And we pepper our thoughts and opinions over each other's work so that the whole thing is very organically sewn together.
- [02:36]
Matt Tamini
And I know you were a Fosse dancer, you, assistant choreographed production of Fosse. Again, not an expert, but I feel like I can see some of those influences in the movement in Sunset, some very staccato movements and stuff like that in there. And. But to me, there's something different. There's a new evolution to that in this choreography that. And this might not be an appropriate term to a choreographer, but they're harsh, they're sharp movements, and that certainly fits into the world that you guys are portraying on stage. But I'm interested. How would you describe the choreography that is on stage in Sunset Boulevard every night?
- [03:15]
Fabian Aloise
I think there's two camps of choreography in Sunset. I think there is, you know, the. What I call Norma's vision, or young Norma. And then there's the Hollywood wannabes. I think, you know, having worked with for a long time in. With. With Ann Reinking, the likes of Ann Reinking and Ben Vereen and Chita Rivera, it becomes part of your DNA as a young dancer. So I don't think it's ever going to leave me, nor would I want it to. I think Fosse and his legacy helped me hone my own craft. And so it's inevitable that there are things like amoebas that just pop up all of a sudden in Sunset Boulevard, or the angular movements, as you said, the sharp movements become part of the frenetic energy of the wannabes in Hollywood. But I think if we start just for a second with the young Norma stuff, I often joke that all of that choreography hangs off the cheekbones of Nicole Schertzinger, because when I first started working with Nicole, she was looking at herself in the mirror. I kind of told her to look at herself in the mirror, trace her face, trace the lines of her face. And then we kind of pulled all of those movements that we created with each other apart and gave them to young Norma, to Hannah Chamberlain and. And kind of created this character that is constantly trapped in the celluloid. She's immortal, and she's everything that Norma wishes she still was, and she's everything that every wannabe in Hollywood aspires to be. This immortality, so to speak, and then the other, so that all of that is kind of sinewy and kind of contorts itself into these incredibly wonderful, weird, hypnotic shapes. But then on the other side of it, we've got this sort of seething, frenetic, wannabe energy that is constantly. We started with a line of people, and it was very important for me and Jamie to kind of start with this. This, like, one line of people, because they're always waiting for their turn. And it's kind of like this. This constant purgatory of they never really get to the front of the line. And then when they do get to the front of the line, they go. They get sent back to the back of the line. Then all of a sudden we have these explosions of. Of anxiety. And, you know, this sort of this internal aggression that combusts in this bombastic movement happens, and then they get sucked back into this line of perpetual waiting. And the irony is that they're all clambering all over each other to get to what young Norma is. And essentially, it's what drives older normal to the point of madness. So, you know, and I think that's what. That's what we. That's definitely what I've strived to achieve with the narration of the choreography. And. But, yes, the movement is. Yeah, the Fosse stuff never leaves you. It's part of my DNA now.
- [06:27]
Matt Tamini
Yeah, well, you mentioned that young Norma and all of her stuff. And you use the word hypnotic and that is. I think it's. Obviously, you're behind the creation of it, but I think that's the perfect word for it. And Hannah Chamberlain is exquisite in everything that she does there. But you. You talked about the narrative impetus for this as It's. It's what young nor or older Norma is imagining herself to be and what everybody else strives to be. And that makes perfect sense, and that works. But I'm interested from the dance and artistic standpoint, that is a role that doesn't exist in almost any other production of Sunset that I'm familiar with. And it also adds an element that is, as you were talking about, between the more linear Hollywood group dancing. It gives you a different style to kind of juxtapose from what we are seeing from every other character. From an artistic standpoint, what does. Having something that is so lyrical and so beautiful and so majestic dropped down into the middle of this otherwise very crazy and chaotic story, what does that give you from an artistic standpoint?
- [07:35]
Fabian Aloise
I mean, it gives you everything, really. I've always. I've always said as soon as. As soon as we kind of created this character, she became the linchpin of the whole show. But the whole thing actually originated from Andrew's score. You know, that. That. That first. That first melody that hear that bomb. Da da da, da da da. You know, it's. It's something that is repeated throughout Max' that he's constantly singing about once, you know, you won't remember. And. And it's essentially about this. This immortal being that. That haunts Norma's mansion, that haunts Joe Gillis in the middle of the night. I often say to Hannah, you know, if this was a movie, you'd be crawling along the walls and in the ceiling and hovering over him while he sleeps, you know, because. And I think what it does is it unlocks movement and unlocks narration. I rem. He first told me we were going to do Sunset Boulevard. We had. We had previously worked on a version of A Vita together, which was.
- [08:38]
Matt Tamini
We're going to talk. We're going to talk about that.
- [08:41]
Fabian Aloise
Yeah, it was a lot more choreography. But. But when he first said about Sunset, I was like, oh, great. Yeah, sunset. What a great score. What am I going to do? You know, because Sunset, you know, historically speaking, is more musical staging than choreography. But then he started to describe his fever dream vision of the show with collaboration with the. With the videography and basically a black box. And then I understood immediately that the ensemble and the choreography was going to have to narrate everything. It was going to have to become the set. So essentially, we were going to have to transport the audience, give them enough of where we are and what's happening for their brains to make up the rest. So essentially, you know, corridors became corridors of people. You know, backlots became people carrying each other like they were carrying set. And then, of course, we get to Norma's mansion and we have this sort of desolate, sparse, but yet haunting mansion. And. And the only thing that we could do, well, that I thought we could do is really kind of have this beautiful vision constantly wafting across the stage like a memory that. That essentially everyone's falling in love with. And I think. I think the beautiful thing that Hannah evokes as well with, With. With the movement, is she helps Joe fall in love with older Norma because I think he starts to see who she was. And I think one of the biggest achievements for me, anyway, collaborative wise, between me, Jamie and Nathan and Joe, the videographers, is new ways to dream, where you see Hannah on the screen and then Nicole watching the movie of Joan of Arc, and you see this sort of transition between older and younger Norma that. That collab was so. That's so many hours of painstaking hours, but it became a labor of love to get it right, because essentially, when you're on screen and on a screen that big, that. That holds the entire St. James Theater, if you move an eyebrow, it's huge, and it's a lot, but the second she's off screen, it can't be minimal. It has to be something that, you know, is pleasing to the eye theatrically. So to find that balance, to walk that wire, became kind of like, you know, what we had to try to achieve. And that was. That, I think, was one of the things that we all collectively worked so hard on achieving. And I think it kind of tells the story quite well now.
- [11:19]
Matt Tamini
Absolutely. You've mentioned your leading lady a couple times, and I would venture to guess that very few people who have ever played Norma Desmond have the dance chops that Nicole Scherzinger does. Obviously, she comes at this role very differently than many other people who have played it, but in doing a little bit of research and talking to some people, I guess I didn't realize this, but did you kind of, like, take some of the moves and the history of her dance experience and integrate them into what she does as Norma?
- [11:50]
Fabian Aloise
Well, 100%. They became the inspiration to how I was going to collaborate with Nicole. And I think it would be impossible to do this version of Sunset Boulevard without out looking at her back catalog of her work and what she's done in her life and how her life has changed over the years. And, you know, her. Her entire work ethic is, for starters, something that is just so incredibly different to what I'm used to and so engaging. And it's like this constant fire that's burning and she never switches off, and she wants to get everything perfect. And that level of work ethic is like a joy for a choreographer to work with, because essentially you go, it's not right. We're going to keep going. And that's the way she works as well. And it's brilliant. It's such an easy way to collaborate. But, yeah, I think we started off with kind of trying to throw some Easter eggs in for Pussycat doll fans. And then very quickly, we realized that there was more to it than that, so we started to use that more as a jumping off point. So we started to look at choreography that she. That suited her body, and then we kind of distorted it and turned it around. And then we. So when we were creating the Salome Solo, that was our. That was. Our jumping off point, was like, okay, who. Who were you when you were at your. The height of your success? Who were you physically when you were with the Dolls? And. And how can we incorporate that into the DNA of. Of your Norma? And then it just started. It just kind of. We filled in the blanks. It started to make sense immediately.
- [13:34]
Matt Tamini
So, yeah, I love that. As somebody who has been a longtime fan of Nicole's, I've never missed an episode of the Masked Singer. I love hearing about all of that, and it's fun to see on stage. But earlier you mentioned the fact that there is no real set for this show. And so in a lot of cases, you use the ensemble as the set and the hallways. But there is one scene, a very important scene and a very fun scene where you actually do have to navigate actual hallways. And that is the title song to open Act 2. I know that we've had shows with video, backstage and stuff in the past, but I have to imagine that that is a feat as complicated as there has ever been on a. I was almost on a Broadway stage, but almost none of it's done on a Broadway stage. How do you go about tackling, taking whoever your Joe Gillis is from the dressing rooms, down the stairways, stairwells, into Schubert Alley. Now you're dealing with potential snow and rain and people watching. That is. It seems like an insane thing to even contemplate attempting, let alone to pull off as magnificently as you guys do.
- [14:42]
Fabian Aloise
That, I would have to say, is collaboration at its best and its most integral because, you know, to kind of. Now, as you said, to navigate through the fine, you know, small hallways of backstage of the St. James and get every moment in screen and shot, and then to kind of take you to the streets of New York. You know, choreographically, the streets of New York became not just. Not just aesthetically important, but it became important safety wise. So it became like, okay, how can we make sure that this company is going to be able to be seen in the camera, going to continuously tell the story, going to still look like they're part of the show that the audience at the St. James has been watching for the first in the first act, but also maintain the safety of the performers, maintain the safety of the security, maintain the safety of the, of the. Of the videographers. I mean, Shayna. Shayna came over with us from London because she, you know, basically trained to do this whole. The video stuff so beautifully. And then when we started to kind of navigate the streets of Manhattan, it was a completely different ballgame than what she was used to, you know, in front of the Savoy Theater, which comparatively is very sleepy. You know, if you're going to compare the Strand to Shubert Alley, it's incredibly sleepy. So it became quite, quite imperative that we navigated all possibilities but still made it as aesthetically pleasing as we possibly could. And that was, I can honestly say there is not one department, not one department in the entire theater that is not being used at that particular moment in the show. So it's like every single person in the theater is working for that to work.
- [16:47]
Matt Tamini
Yeah. And I love the videos I've seen that people have posted recently that now that it's cold out, everybody's wearing coats. Like that's just like a costuming thing. Like you're talking about every department. Like that's something you have to factor in. Is. And it gets colder. And if there's weather, it's. It's brilliant. And the night I saw it easily got one of the biggest standing ovations I've ever seen. I'll come back to Sunset in a minute. But you mentioned Evita. We happen to be recording on the day when the return production of that show was officially announced coming to London in June. I will say your name was not officially in that press release, so I don't know if you are allowed to talk about that. But as you mentioned earlier, you did choreograph it when it was at Regents Park Open Air Theater. And. Well, first I'll say that. Can you talk about this at all, either in the past tense or in the future tense?
- [17:35]
Fabian Aloise
I can talk about it in the past tense, definitely. I mean, obviously, Jamie and I collaborate on everything. I'm collaborating with him currently on the Tempest with Sigourney Weaver at Royal Theatre, Drury Lane. But yes, we did do a version of Evita at Regis park about five years ago, pre Covid. And it was our first big collaboration. I had worked with Jamie on a smaller project on the 24 Hour Musical at the Old Vic Theater before that. But Evita was kind of our big sort of, this is it. This is the baptism of fire with each other. And that's kind of when we just fell in love with the way each other works and being able to kind of tap into each other's brains. Now it's to the point where we'll look at each other in the audience and as we're watching the Tempest and I'll say, do you want. And I don't even have to finish the sentence. He's like, yeah, I do. And I just go up and kind of start doing it. But yeah, Evita became like this sort of. Because it was just a staircase. There was no other flat surface for them to dance on. And that was always the case. But Evita became this sort of opus of choreography from beginning to end. And yeah, that was probably the best, one of the best summers of my life and career and one of the hardest things that I've ever managed to do, to be part of. But it was pretty epic. Yeah.
- [19:03]
Matt Tamini
And this is one of those things where because they only Put out very few clips of it. And I know it was intended to go back to London and then Covid hit. But the concept, and correct me if I'm wrong, feels very big, stadium pop extravaganza. I mean, even throw out the name Beyonce and some of these things. How would you describe the concept behind what. How this show works? Obviously very different from traditional Evitas, not unlike how Sunset is very different than traditional productions of that show as well.
- [19:33]
Fabian Aloise
It's interesting that you say that, that Beyonce thing, because that was actually one of the inspirations for us as well. I remember being in the original, in the early conversations about Evita at Regents Park. The Regents Park Open Air Theater is such a big, beautiful. I mean, it's one of my favorite venues in London in the summer. It's just magical. But it has to be an event. You know, you. Things that work outside don't necessarily work inside, and vice versa. So what we wanted to do was create sort of like an art installation, an event. So this sort of concert, this sort of Beyonce, you know, the steps, even though they kind of embodied the, you know, the steps of the Casa Rosada were also like, you know, the steps of Beyonce's homecoming. You know, then we started to kind of look at that because essentially we were creating an icon because Eva Perron was such an. Is such an icon for Argentina. And so we thought, okay, what's an icon today? Okay, well, Beyonce's an icon. Lady Gaga is an icon. Like, these people are icons. And so we're like, so if we start to tap into that and for this generation, what would that mean? And then that's how everything started to unfold. I think what Jamie does very well, and I. And I love it. And this is one of the reasons why I love working with him and why we work well together is we. When we pull apart an existing show, we don't just. We pay homage to it, to what it was, because that's important, because there is a history there, but we also pull it apart enough to. To reinvent it for the generation that has never seen it before. And I think that's. That's the key to any sort of revival, in my opinion. My personal opinion is that if the only thing that we were going to do was just dust it off and give it a lick of paint and put it out again, then we might as well just put out the original productions because they were brilliant as they were. But I think as we move forward, and I think Covid also. I think Covid kind of made all of our brains evolved entertainment wise quite quickly because now we have this. We spent all this time at home. We spent all this time on Netflix and Disney plus. I mean, God only knows how many apps I actually bought throughout Covid that I still sit and watch. So I think theater became this sort of. Even though we were craving that human interaction and being able to go out again. But then all of a sudden we were sat there going, I want more. I want to be entertained more. I want my brain to be expanded. I want, you know, so I think it's all the more reason that when we kind of attack these, these, these older productions and reinvent them, it's. It's to kind of keep the mind guessing as to what comes next, as though you were watching a brand new production for the very first time. And I think for some generations, watching Evita was for the first time. So it's like, how can we tell the story if this woman who really existed, but within this fever dream of a musical that has been written quite like a fever dream, and make it make sense and have them, you know, have them have a visceral reaction to it. And so I think when you approach it like that, it becomes more important to. To really kind of the retelling of it becomes more important, I think. Does that make sense?
- [23:02]
Matt Tamini
No, absolutely. I think that's brilliant. And I completely agree in terms of what the purpose is of doing revivals, if you're going to do a revival, have something to say about the material that's not just regurgitating what has been done in the past. So I appreciate hearing you articulate that as well. And this is by far one of my most anticipated productions in a long time. I've been looking forward to seeing this show since you guys were at Regent's Park. So whether or not you are involved in this new incarnation, I will be seated at the theater in London sometime next summer to see it. And I can't wait. But I will wrap up with one more question about Sunset and then let you go. But we talked about all of the different styles of choreography in this show. But for you as the choreographer, now that you have seen not only the Broadway production, but the London production, and you have obviously gone on and as you talked about, you know, doing the Tempest now back in London, you've been through this, you've been living this for a while. But as you go back to the theater, whichever theater that is, to see it, no matter who's on in whatever roles, is there a moment when you of choreography Specifically, when you say, you know what you know, that's what I wanted to communicate with this show. There's. Is there one moment, one move, one interaction where you're like. That's the essence of what I envisioned Sunset Boulevard to be from a choreographic standpoint.
- [24:22]
Fabian Aloise
Yeah, I do. I think. Oh, I said, yeah, I do. But there's so many moments that I think encapsulate Sunset Boulevard particularly. But I think the opening is probably my favorite sort of moment, watching Hannah do that solo, because it immediately pulls everyone into this world of. Of beauty and hypnotic. I don't know how to say it. This youth. I think she encapsulates everything within that first solo that you watch, and that connection that we created between her and the conductor immediately pulls you in. But I don't think anyone really knows what the story is yet. They're just entranced. And then all of a sudden, you see the body bag open, and it's like, what. What's happening? And I think. I think that's probably my sort of most favorite moment that I went. Yes. Like, that's. That's what I. That. That's what I was hoping for. And Hannah very much became not just, you know, this gorgeous dancer and actor, but like a muse for. For almost everything Norma related. And then I think, also, I think the car chase for me as well, became such a. Such an iconic moment for the show, because it was so. It was so crazy an idea. And I remember holding onto one of the gimbals, and Shayna passed it to me, and I held it, and it was. The camera was facing me, and I just looked at the monitor, and I could see myself. And I kind of started rotating my hands around. I was like, oh, it's like a car. And then I said, okay, you know, this could actually be the car chase. And then. And we could. And then when we started to kind of have all the dancers kind of clambering over each other and creating all these, like, roads and, you know, this sort of frenetic movement, like he was being chased and trying to get away from these two finance men. I think that became so cool to me. And I just. I just remember we getting really fascinated with. It was almost like I was watching some sort of person playing, you know, a video game on stage. And I just. I became entranced in what was happening. And then, of course, when we. When we put on the, you know, the opening credits, it was like, well, this. This is it. This is what it is. This. This is what makes the show this is what crosses between the two mediums. This is when theater and cinema collide. And, you know, and. Yeah, it's. I think that's what Sunset is. I think.
- [27:05]
Matt Tamini
Yeah, absolutely. However many minutes that is. 5, 10, 15. I couldn't even tell you because I was so enraptured by it. But that opening for the whole show, like you talked about, is just magic. And I'm so glad that you're giving Hannah her flowers, because I feel like she might have been overlooked in a lot of these reviews for obvious reasons, because of all of the big, bright things, but she is to open the show like that. And I love the fact that, at least when I was there, I don't think the audience realized it wasn't Nicole at first. So to kind of have that realization that it is somebody different and then to kind of realize who she actually is was such a special, magical moment. So I'm really glad to hear you say that, but. Well, Fabian, thank you so much for taking the time to do this. You're in London. You're five hours ahead of me, so. And you're. I'm assuming you're coming back from rehearsal or something, but I really appreciate you taking the time. I have. I'm going back to see Sunset a week from today, actually. So I will be back at the St. James, and then I'm going back in January to see Mandy Gonzalez as well. So I will be.
- [28:05]
Fabian Aloise
She's amazing. You're gonna love her. She's incredible. I love Mandy.
- [28:11]
Matt Tamini
The only thing I will say is if we could get a curly wig for Hannah when Mandy's on. I love. I love Mandy's curly hair. If we could get Hannah in that similar wig, I think that might work a little bit more, too.
- [28:23]
Fabian Aloise
But I'll have. I'll have a word. I'll have a word.
- [28:27]
Matt Tamini
Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. Congratulations on everything, and very much looking forward to everything else you have coming down the pipe.
- [28:34]
Fabian Aloise
Thank you very much. My pleasure. Absolutely. Pleasure. Thank you so much.