Puddles into rainbows

By Isabel Lloyd

Musicals need movement. No matter how many great songs there are, if everyone stands still while they sing them, you might as well go to the opera. Big dance numbers are vital to this, the lightest of light entertainment; they take the plot, then spin it like floss into fantasy. Never mind the fourth wall—in musicals, the less you believe the better.

So it’s perhaps surprising that more classically trained dancers haven’t crossed the musical stage. Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly were all hoofers who knew enough about ballet to take what they wanted from it and ignore the rest. But only Cyd Charisse could call herself a ballerina proper—before pinioning Kelly in the man-trap of her thighs in MGM’s “Singin’ in the Rain”, she performed with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Even then, the name tells you all you need to know about how core that corps was.