Trailblazer known for bold style
ANN Reinking was a Tony Awardwinning choreographer, actress and Bob Fosse collaborator who helped spread a cool, muscular hybrid of jazz and burlesque movement to Broadway and beyond.
She died on December 12, aged 71.
Trained as a ballet dancer, Reinking was known for her bold style of dance, epitomised by her work in the revival of the Kander and Ebb musical Chicago,
complete with fishnet stockings, chair dancing and plenty of pelvic thrusts.
Reinking costarred as Roxie Hart alongside Bebe Neuwirth’s Velma and created the choreography “in the style of
Bob Fosse,” the show’s original director and choreographer, who died in 1987.
Reinking and Fosse worked together for 15 years and had a romantic relationship.
Reinking’s work on Chicago
earned her a Tony in 1997, as well as Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards. She replicated the choreography in productions in England, Australia, Austria, Sweden, the Netherlands and elsewhere.
The musical’s revival was first produced in a concert version at City Centre’s “Encores” series in 1996, then moved to Broadway, where in 2011 it became the secondlongestrunning show in Broadway history.
“You know how you hear sometimes a woman goes into labour, and 10 minutes later she’s got this beautiful baby?
You couldn’t believe that it was materialising in such a beautiful way,” she told the Associated Press in 2011 about the early days of the revival.
In 1998, she codirected Fosse,
a salute to the man who had the largest influence, both professionally and personally, on her life. He once called her “one of the finest dancers in the jazzmodern idiom.”
Her movie credits include Annie (1982), Movie, Movie (1978) and the documentary Mad Hot Ballroom (2005), which portrayed Reinking as a ballroomdance competition judge for New York City kids. Reinking was portrayed by Margaret Qualley in the recent FX series
Verdon. —