A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Remember Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal"?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SMOOTH CRIMINAL")
MICHAEL JACKSON: (Yelling) Ow.
MARTÍNEZ: How about Beyonce's "Single Ladies"?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SINGLE LADIES (PUT A RING ON IT)")
BEYONCE: (Singing) Woah-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh.
MARTÍNEZ: The moves in those iconic music videos were inspired by choreographer Bob Fosse and his wife, dancer Gwen Verdon. But to perform Fosse, you need permission from the Fosse/Verdon estate. So it's a big deal that Chicago's Hubbard Street Dance has been chosen as the first company to add one of its works to its repertoire. Here's NPR's Elizabeth Blair.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: Humor, attitude and precision. That's classic Fosse/Verdon. On "The Ed Sullivan Show" in the 1960s, Gwen Verdon and two other dancers wore bright yellow and pink pantsuits for a joyful jazzy piece. Even the tiniest gestures are timed perfectly to the music - quick pelvic thrusts, bobbing heads, flicks of the wrist.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOB FOSSE'S "MEXICAN BREAKFAST")
BLAIR: Fosse and Verdon were partners in life and dance. Their daughter, Nicole Fosse, says they would spend hours creating together.
NICOLE FOSSE: As my mother used to say, we were just funky-junking around in a studio together. Just playing around. The language in the household, the language between my parents, was dance, was humor, was storytelling through movement.
BLAIR: Bob Fosse grew up in Chicago. It's also where he and a friend started dancing professionally at age 12 as the Riff Brothers. Nicole has been working to preserve her parents' legacy. She was a co-executive producer on the FX series "Fosse/Verdon," starring Sam Rockwell and Michelle Williams. Nicole knew that Lou Conte, the founder of Hubbard Street Dance, worked with her parents on Broadway and that her mother had worked with the company.
FOSSE: She and Lou had a really lovely, amicable relationship.
BLAIR: In 2019, she asked former Fosse dancer Linda Haberman if she would reimagine some of the short pieces her parents created for TV.
FOSSE: She kind of set me free, and I first had to go and reconstruct the numbers from the old video of the TV shows and then figure out a way to connect it with some new choreography, but all based on Bob Fosse steps. I worked with him a lot, so I know kind of how he worked.
BLAIR: Like turning everyday movements into dance, as Gwen Verdon did when she and other dancers put out their cigarettes in a 1960s TV special.
FOSSE: They drop the cigarette, and they put their foot on it and start smashing it out.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOB FOSSE'S "COOL HAND LUKE")
FOSSE: A normal person would twist your foot to put the cigarette out. But then they are twisting their foot, and they're like, oh, that felt good. Now my hip's moving. Oh, now my whole booty's moving. And all of a sudden, they're just having so much fun, and it all stem from just putting out a cigarette.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOB FOSSE'S "COOL HAND LUKE")
BLAIR: Turning small gestures into sensuality and stories is a hallmark of Fosse/Verdon's work. Nicole Fosse says she sees her parents' impact everywhere.
FOSSE: Bob Fosse's influence is huge in today's culture, sometimes very obviously so, and sometimes much more subtly so.
BLAIR: Now, with Hubbard Street dance, Nicole Fosse says it's more than preservation, it's moving her parents' work forward.
Elizabeth Blair, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF HERB ALPERT AND THE TIJUANA BRASS' "MEXICAN SHUFFLE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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