Matsui is co-choreographing with Jason Tyler Chong, who has danced in Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera videos. “If anything, there’s a sort of a pop element to it.” “You get songs like ‘Magic to Do,’ where the melody line is so not hip-hop,” says Marcus Choi, who stars as the Leading Player. Converting the songs into hip-hop sometimes proved challenging. This version of “Pippin” features a DJ who mixes music on turntables. In keeping with the themes of the show, musical director Marc Macalintal has re-orchestrated songs to create hip-hop rhythms. “I have to kind of squash it down a bit.” “My tendency is to go hammy all the way,” he says. “There’s a lot less ‘Ta da!’ ”įor Gedde Watanabe, best known as the foreign exchange student in the 1984 film “Sixteen Candles,” this means a change in tone. “We thought that everything that we do onstage has to be dead serious, as if it’s life or death,” Dang says. I see that correlation in hip-hop.”Īs he works with the actors during a rehearsal, Dang tells his cast to mimic the cool, understated style of anime. “Bob Fosse’s choreography is very sexy it deals with a lot of isolation of body parts - lots of shoulders, lots of hips, lots of knees and all that. “They’re this urban, metropolitan, cosmopolitan kind of generation.”ĭang’s initial impulse to connect “Pippin” to hip-hop was inspired by Fosse. They’re not necessarily Asian anymore, or African American or Latino,” Dang says. “A lot of the younger audiences, the younger performers, don’t want to be defined by race anymore. The melding of anime and hip-hop into “Pippin” fits the pan-cultural attitude Dang observes among young people at East West. “It’s not so specifically set in a place and a time that you can’t fool around with it,” he says by phone from his Connecticut home. Schwartz is accustomed to reinterpretations of the musical about a young prince who goes into the world to seek his life’s purpose, trying out war, politics, sex and even domestic life. SAMURAI CHAMPLOO SPEAR GIRL SERIESDang’s main models were two series by Shinichir Watanabe, the space western “Cowboy Bebop” and the action comedy “Samurai Champloo.” “Pippin is obviously a contemporary story grafted onto a historical milieu, and when done successfully, sort of both things are happening at once,” Schwartz says.Īnachronisms and young men on quests are frequent traits of anime, the American term for Japanese animation, known for its hand-drawn style, big eyes, dramatic lighting and wide variety of genres - including kids shows as well as porn. “He always ribs me,” Dang says, “that East West has done so much Stephen Sondheim, that ‘you never do my work - the other SS.’ ” Finally, Dang gave in.Īlthough the show is loosely based on the son of Charlemagne, who ruled in 8th century Europe, the language is contemporary and the music is 1970s pop rock. The idea for East West Players’ production, which opens Wednesday, was spurred by good-natured prodding from Stephen Schwartz, the songwriter behind “Pippin,” “Godspell” and “Wicked,” when he and Dang would see each other at an annual theater conference. “That is not in my dance vocabulary.”ĭang, artistic director for East West Players, is one of the few people in the room who, at 49, is old enough to have seen Bob Fosse’s original 1972 Broadway production of “Pippin.” To attract young audiences, he’s updating the classic musical with an anime and hip-hop theme. “That’s a dance step, ‘blade open,’ ” director Tim Dang says, looking on. Instead of a music video or black belt challenge, Moh, who has performed stunts with Jackie Chan, and Matsui launch into “Magic to Do” from the musical “Pippin.” Dressed in a white lace tank top cropped above her navel and camouflage cargo pants rolled up to reveal high-heeled leather boots, the dancer-choreographer and former Laker Girl turns to Mike Moh, an extreme martial arts specialist, and says: “Blade open.” BLYTHE MATSUI holds her arm straight out, hand flat, palm up, while rotating her body.
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