Choreography on Broadway

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Chroniclers of the musical theater have been around for years, collecting pictorial surveys, librettos and scores, and recording the careers of various theatrical celebrities. Nothing in the American musical theater has been more inaccessible, however, than the record of its dance traditions, and there are many to recount.

For the most part, dance movement itself was either the last to be mentioned by critics or ignored altogether, resulting in dance numbers in musicals going unrecorded. The only way to preserve dance movements from generation to generation was by demonstration, imitation, practice, and personal supervision.

Not until 1960, with the musical Bye Bye Birdie, did the permanent notation of a show's complete choreography exist.