Bringing Dance Fusion to Bombay Dreams –
Choreographer Lisa Stevens

OK. So what would you do with dance numbers in a re-worked touring production of an India-inspired, London-born, Broadway-tweaked musical that is more “Bollywood” than Broadway, more American than British, and more “dance show” than your run-of-the-mill musical comedy?

The touring production coming to Cleveland, however, had to take on a bit more of an American approach, to please the theater-goers from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Yet it had to maintain the Bollywood content at its heart and soul.

“This is exotic, primal music,” she shares, “that sets out to create a visceral charge in the audience member.” The dancing, then, must be an extension of that goal, and still appeal to people whose knowledge of musical theater may be limited to standards of many-years duration.

“This is totally different choreography,” explains Stevens, “and I’ve strived for a fusion of Indian dancing with jazz, hip-hop, and lyrical (a ballet/jazz combination) dance. Even within the Indian dance we incorporate traditional, folk, and filmi (the Bollywood film style) dances.”

Spectacle over storyline? Not really.

“The numbers are big, they have to be,” Stevens adds, “but I am huge on the exposition and story-telling aspects of the numbers as well. I’ve taken the music, re-edited some of it, cut and pasted other parts of it, in order to give a different flavor and to highlight the characters or the story even more.

“And don’t forget that I’ve designed many of the numbers from different sets! We’re working with many different pieces and/or approaches from what we had in either London or New York.

“But, yes, there’s still plenty of spectacle,” laughs Stevens. Without giving away too much, she explains that one number will create a huge reaction in ways that no one will expect—or forget!

Stevens is one of those choreographers who seems to continually push the envelope—and some of the other cast members as well. In many musicals there are the “singers” and the “dancers,” and ne’er the twain shall meet. In this one, however, she has all the singers dancing as well as singing, and she has found that “even without dance training, the singers seem genuinely happy to be participating more fully in the numbers.” She stresses that she loves working with whole casts in order to re-educate and re-motivate, and it often takes little more than saying “You’re all in this number—let’s learn it!”

When we spoke on the telephone, Stevens was two days away from a first “preview” performance of BOMBAY DREAMS in Tucson and heading to a grueling 12-hour rehearsal. “I still have one more number to teach, then we’re all set for the previews and next week’s actual first stop on the tour in Costa Mesa, California.”

She knows the rigors—and the rewards—of the rehearsal period and the run, from her years as a dancer/performer. Several experiences stand out, such as her performance in the original cast of Chicago in its latest revival in London. “I was able to work with and for the great choreographer Anne Reinking…the person who inspired me to go into dance!”

It doesn’t get much better than that to a dancer. Unless you’re chosen to dance in the recent film version of The Phantom of the Opera—as Stevens was. Her voice grows softer as she shares “It was an incredible experience…truly incredible.”

Stevens has plans, goals, ideas about the future, but right now she is delighted to be the choreographer for the touring production of BOMBAY DREAMS. And whether it’s a “girly number” to satisfy one staff member or a spectacle for another, her own ideas and ideals shine through.

For more information about Lisa Stevens, visit her website at www.lisastevens.biz.