Buffalo Rising Online

May 25th 2007, 6:19am By Tom Dooney

One question you will never have to answer is “Chita who?”

There is only one.

To write about Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life comes perilously close to treading on the show’s territory…something a respectful journalist would never do. It would be worse that synopsizing the plot, always a lazy substitute for cultural journalism. Suffice to say, there is no traditional plot to this biographic revue coming to Shea’s as part of Rivera’s national tour.

One could write about the show’s purpose, a brainy attempt to get to the “why” of the show…but the show is all about purpose, and set to music to boot- why Rivera dances, why anyone dances- the training, the toil, ambition and disappointment, the thrill of performance victory, the agony of the feet. (Sorry. But that’s how hard it is to put an acceptable gloss on the physical suffering a career dancer experiences for the good of a show.)

Rivera’s working life defines her legendary status. She’s been a professional Broadway dancer for 50 years, in demand by the most discriminating choreographers and directors for all that time. Just as a great couture designer places the fashion of the times on a model, Broadway’s greatest dance through the years has been staged for Rivera’s body, as well as her talent, presence, drama and intensity. And, at 73, she’s still dancing.

In the 1950s, Jerome Robbins used her as his vessel as Anita in West Side Story. While Tony and Maria sang Bernstein’s romantic score, Rivera sustained the dance narrative. In the 1960s, she exemplified the pop-goes-Broadway of Gower Champion’s Bye Bye, Birdie!

In the 1970s, she reveled in the tawdry decadence of Fosse’s dances for Chicago. In the 1980s…well, the less said about the art of Broadway in the 1980s, the better. (Sorry, Andrew Lloyd Weber fans.) However, it must be remembered that this is when Rivera won the first of her Tony awards for her performance in The Rink, one of the few original musicals of that decade. In the 1990s, she epitomized dance glamour in The Kiss Of The Spider Woman (and won her second Tony). In the first decade of this century, Chita is not only the name above the title, she is the title.

In Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life, Rivera’s personal story unfurls for us. Its details not only introduce Rivera, but they tell an archetypal biography of all dancers. Supported by a splendid corps, Rivera recreates dances from Broadway’s past for today’s audiences. So, in addition to Rivera we also get living memory of the life and works of Robbins, Champion, Fosse, Graciela Daniele, Peter Gennaro, Michael Kidd and many more.

As she narrates the evening, Rivera generously acknowledges those who have contributed to her life. It reminds us of how thousands of colleagues acknowledge her.

To this day, whether on a high school stage or the Great White Way, dancers doing these shows, and others in the Rivera trunk, use her moves. In 1997, when Bebe Neuwirth accepted her own Tony for the revival of Chicago, playing a role Rivera had created, she took a moment in her speech to call Rivera a goddess. In a time when the titles “diva” and “goddess” are as common as bumper stickers, one must evaluate Chita Rivera as the real thing.

Want more proof?

Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life May 29 through June 3 Shea’s Center For The Performing Arts 646 Main (between Tupper and Chippewa) ticketmaster.com or 852.5000