Monday 16th February 2015 - Researching The Cell Block Tango

Monday 16th February 2015
Researching The Cell Block Tango

The cell block tango was originally performed on Broadway in the 42nd street theatre, in 1975. The music is written by John Kander and lyrics written by Fred Ebb. It is in the musical Chicago and tells the story of 6 murderous wives and how they ended up in prison. The musical is set in the prohibition era in America and is the second longest running show that has been on Broadway, because it is set in this era, America vaudeville was a popular source of entertainment in speakeasies around America. It is a character song that has a mixture of speaking and singing, the dance is fast and high energy that combines burlesque. The cell block tango has been covered many times, the cast of glee did a version as well as Todrick Hall who performed in a parody of it called "The spell block tango".


http://pixgood.com/cell-block-tango-costumes.html


Costumes - Usually the costumes that are used are dark coloured, usually black and short. Black leotards with fishnet tights are often used with black shoes and dark makeup. We have decided to wear black leotards with black shorts, footless fishnet tights and foot thongs. Originally we were going to wear black heeled character shoes, but because we are stepping on and off of chairs, we thought it was safer to not wear shoes. However instead of having bare feet, which we wouldn't be able to slide with, we are using foot thongs.

Lighting - In the film version of the cell block tango they use red, dark lighting, this reflects the theme of the performance as it relates to murder and blood. They also use black silhouettes as background dancers that are behind jail bars, this creates differentiation in levels and lighting in the performance.

Props - In the original performance the dancers use sashes to dance with, red for guilty and white for innocent. In the next rehearsals we are going to experiment with using these in our version of the cell block tango. We are also going to use chairs, we had this idea as we don't have jail bars or boys to dance with, therefore we are going to dance around the chairs instead.

I would perform this at the variety show because it would give me a chance to develop my skills in both singing and dance. I have never done a high energy fast dance whilst singing so rehearsing this would give me a chance to do something that require me to use different skills and improve my stamina. Also this song incorporates burlesque and is a character song, these were both used in variety theatre, however this is a modern version.

Wikepedia:Chicago(Musical) can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_(musical) (Tuesday 17th February 2015)

Wikepedia:Cell block tango can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_Block_Tango (Tuesday 17th February 2015)