Buyi Zama as Rafiki in "The Circle of

Life," the opening number of The Lion
King National Tour. Jewish performers

include Mark David Kaplan as Zazu and

Ben Lipitz as Pumbaa.

Lion King Choreographer G
influences include a WSU deg
Jewish grandmother.

Arlene Hisiger

Special to the Jewish News

W

ith his embracing laugh and

easy accessibility, you could
be tempted to call him down-
to-earth. But to do so would be to deny
Garth Fagan's unearthly ability to channel
creative vision into kinetic energy of such
force that he, and by extension, his danc-
ers, all but levitate above the stage.
This is but one of several perceived com-
peting dualities that converge in creative
service to the inspired vision of Fagan, the
Kingston, Jamaica-born founder and artis-
tic director of the Rochester, N.Y.-based
Garth Fagan Dance, now in its 40th season.
Fagan's creative choreographic vision for
The Lion King, Broadway's largest-grossing
musical, will be on view through March 10
at the Detroit Opera House.
Fagan, now 72, was a reluctant partici-
pant in his parents' attempts at cultural
enrichment. He failed to understand how
the likes of Vladimir Horowitz, Marian
Anderson or Arthur Rubinstein could
move his parents to tears.
"As a kid growing up in Jamaica, they
dragged me to lunch-hour concerts:' Fagan

Jews

Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News

The New Twilight?

Opening Thursday, Feb.14, is the
supernatural film Beautiful Creatures,
based on the first novel, by Kami
Garcia and Margaret Stohl, of The
Caster Chronicles, which already
boasts three hot-selling sequels.
The film opens with teenager Lena
(Alice Engelbert) arriving in a small
town. She is a Caster, who, like the
rest of her extended family, has
strong supernatural powers. When
she turns 16, she will be required to
decide whether she will follow the
Light or the Dark. Lena quickly bonds
with Ethan, a local teen who is bored
with his hometown.
Playing Ethan is Alden Ehrenreich,
23, who, at age 14, was discovered
by Steven Spielberg. While attend-

46

February 14 • 2013

says. "I hated them," he
laughingly recalls, "because
I had to sit still" Conjuring
up visions of the promised
post-concert malted milk
and burger at the local
dime store, Fagan managed
to stay the course.
Yet, despite his seem-
ing youthful disinterest in
the arts, the particular art
form that would capture
his soul had begun to stir
within him. Overriding
Garth Fagan
his Oxford-trained father's
dismissal of his passion as a waste of time,
at age 16, Fagan made the leap from gym-
nastics to join the Jamaica National Dance
Theatre Company.
From there he made his way to Detroit
and Wayne State University, where he cho-
reographed his first piece. A graduate of
the university — and a recipient of its Arts
Achievement Award — the former Detroit
resident was for a brief time director of
Detroit's All-City Dance Company and prin-
cipal soloist and choreographer for Detroit
Contemporary Dance Company and Dance
Theatre of Detroit.

ing a bat mitzvah,

Spielberg chanced
to see a funny video
Ehrenreich starred in;
the director contact-
ed Ehrenreich and
helped get his career
started.
Ehrenreich
Emmy Rossum, 26,
plays Lena's cousin
Ridley, who has chosen the dark
side. Zoey Deutch, 18, has a role as
Emily, Ethan's former girlfriend who
now hates him and Lena and leads a
group opposed to any
Caster.
This is Deutch's
first big film role. In
the last three years,
she's had recurring
roles on Suite Life
on Deck, a Disney
Deutch
Channel series, and

A student of WSU dance
department founder Ruth
Murray, he also stud-
ied with dance masters
Martha Graham, Jose
Limon and Alvin Alley, to
name a few.
A one-year teach-
ing position at SUNY
Brockport evolved into a
lifetime residency at the
college near Rochester,
N.Y. The rest, as they say, is
history — a dance history
enriched by Fagan's unique
imprint. An imprint he calls "vocabulary"
In 1970, he fashioned a disciplined dance
troupe from a ragtag group of potential-
laden, yet untrained students, defiantly
dubbing them the "Bottom of the Bucket ...
But, Dance Theatre" Of those times, Fagan
declared that while he might not have
been working with trained dancers, he was
beginning to define his brand of dance.
"My vocabulary is more philosophy than
technique," Fagan explains. "I didn't want
dancers showing off technique, pretending
to be people. I wanted them to be people
who were dancing."

on CW's Ringer, which starred Sarah
Michelle Gellar. Zoey's father is film
director Howard Deutch (Pretty in
Pink), 63.
While making his film Some Kind
of Wonderful, Deutch met his wife,
actress Lea Thompson, 51, who also is
Zoey's mother. In a recent interview
and tweet, Zoey described herself as
"Jewish."
While I don't know if Thompson, 51,
converted to Judaism, she did recent-
ly film a public service announcement
urging couples to test for genetic dis-
eases that disproportionately affect
Jews.

Star Wars Saga

Late last month came the news that

J.J. Abrams (director of 2009's Star
Trek and the upcoming Star Trek into
Darkness), 46, had been signed by

Disney (who acquired LucasFilm Ltd.)

Fagan might best be described as a dance
alchemist in his seamless yet distinctive
blend of genres. "I wanted:' he says, "the
weight of modern dance, the speed and pre-
cision of ballet, the poly-rhythms of Afro-
Caribbean dance and the experimentation
of post-modern dance.
"Each flavor should work well with the
others yet still remain identifiable," says
Fagan, defining his objective in creating his
movement melange.
For The Lion King, "I wanted to include
all types of dancing — modern, ballet,
African and hip-hop:' he said in a 2002
interview for Showbill. Devising dances that
wouldn't be hindered by the Julie Taymor-
designed puppet-like costumes, he said
"the trick was to get the essence of the ani-
mals but also to keep the awareness of the
human body"
For his efforts, he won the 1998 Tony
Award for Best Choreography, as well as the
Drama Desk Award, the Astaire Award, the
Outer Critics Circle Award and the U.K.'s
Olivier Award.
Fagan's dance vocabulary is very much
present-day in that the women in his troupe
are not "little girls, waiting on princes."
They are, rather, "contemporary women
who can make hard-core decisions, and
jump and turn like the men do" His male
dancers, in turn, "can be vulnerable as well
as virile and testosterone-laden. The gender
borders are expanded:' Fagan says.
The many awards lavished upon Fagan
are a testament to his virtuosity as a bril-
liant choreographer, teacher and leader.
On a personal level, however, a particularly
satisfying professional moment occurred in
his native Jamaica.
"In 1973, I took 15 dancers to Jamaica;
says Fagan. "I called my dad (he was for a
time Jamaica's chief education officer) and

'Lion' Dance on page 51

to direct Star Wars:
Episode VII, the
first of three new
sequential films in
the Star Wars saga.
All three films will be
made over a six-year
period, beginning in
Abrams
2015.
But, then, last
week, Disney head Bob Iger, 61, sur-
prised many when he said Disney had
engaged U-M grad Lawrence Kasdan
(he penned screenplays for The
Empire Strikes Back and Return of
the Jedi), 64, and Simon Kinberg (Mr.
and Mrs. Smith, X-Men), 39, to work
on separate films that will serve as
stand-alone spinoffs of the new tril-
ogy. Iger told CNBC that these films
are "derived from great Star Wars
characters that are not part of the
overall saga."

❑