Page 101 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2023 - Online Magazine

MUSIC & ART

Africa often, he feels strongly tied to every wanted to get in there. I’m very proud of all
aspect of Caribbean and African cultures. my dances, but I’m particularly proud of the
What he didn’t reckon on were the costumes. lioness dance.”
“When I saw the drawings for the puppets,”
he says, “it was love at first sight. But I Fagan came away from The Lion King not
didn’t know how I’d integrate them into the only with a Tony Award in 1997 for his
dance. All their lives, dancers wear clothes as choreography but with major new insights.
skimpy as possible because they need to be “I learned how to create dances in hardly
free. Now they’d have gazelles on their arms; any space, like the hyena dance,” he
grass on their heads, all the while they’re says, “and how to devise movement that
leaping and turning.” would be vibrant and big enough not to be
overpowered by all the beautiful scenery
Working with his longtime company and costumes, while also keeping in mind
members, Norwood J. Pennewell and Natalie that the dancers have to do eight shows a
Rogers, he devised movements that wouldn’t week and couldn’t be totally exhausted.”
be hindered by the costumes. “The trick was He paused, evaluating his life-changing
to get the essence of the animals,” he says, experience. “But the most important thing I
“but also to keep an awareness of the human learned,” he says, “was how to adapt when
body. I wanted you to think lioness but also something didn’t work. We were going for
think woman, who is hunting to eat. While a masterpiece, and everyone involved knew
you’re seeing the lionesses hunting, you’re the collaboration counted for more than any
still getting the feeling of femaleness. They’re one particular view. That’s why The Lion King
strong women, and, if they don’t hunt, the is a masterpiece.”
lazy men don’t eat. All these human things I

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