“Wicked” choreographer Christopher Scott used to escape to the movies as a kid. When his family moved from Maryland to Los Angeles, Scott would head to the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood to work out his angst.
“I’d take my ticket stub, and they would let me back in, so I paid once, but I saw it probably 10 times,” Scott tells Variety, recalling the summer of 1998 when he religiously watched (and rewatched) “Blade” starring Wesley Snipes. “Any time I was frustrated, I would just go. That was my outlet.”
So, when “Wicked” debuted in theaters last month, Scott strolled back into that famed cinema.
“I could feel my younger self in that theater, dealing with those emotions and remembering how powerful this stuff can really be,” Scott recalls. “This was my sanctuary, and now I’m watching my choreography on screen. And I have a cameo. When I popped up on screen, I was crying.” (Scott is the gentleman who takes Elphaba and Glinda’s coats when the witches pull into the Emerald City train station.)
It should be noted that “Wicked” is far from Scott’s first foray into making magic on the big screen: His partnership with the film’s director Jon M. Chu began 17 years ago on “Step Up 2: The Streets” and has continued ever since. The duo partnered on three more “Step Up” movies, as well as “In The Heights,” “Jem and the Holograms” and “Now You See Me 2.” But they’ve never had a hit quite as big as “Wicked.”
The Universal movie, starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, has grossed $322 million domestically and $457 million worldwide to date. It’s already the highest-grossing Broadway adaptation in domestic box office history, ahead of 1978’s “Grease” ($188.62 million) and the second-biggest worldwide after 2008’s “Mamma Mia” ($611 million).
And it’s not only Erivo and Grande’s pitch-perfect singing that’s drawing in crowds. Scott’s choreography — particularly the “book dance” section “What Is This Feeling” — has gone viral, with everyone from Broadway chorus lines to “Dancing with the Stars” champion Jenna Johnson-Chmerkovskiy and Grande’s brother, Frankie, displaying their mastery of the moves on TikTok and Instagram.
“It gives you confirmation that what we do with dance as our art form is power,” Scott says of those unintentionally viral moves. “I’m trying to tell a story through the film, with all these other storytellers and Jon at the helm of it all. We’re giving them a cinematic experience. What I love about this moment is it gives people another thing to do that brings joy and camaraderie. It really feels like we did our job.”
The choreography in “Wicked” has become such a phenomenon that Scott’s sister, a professor at Los Angeles Valley College, approached him with an idea.
“She asked if I would be down to come teach professors the dance so they could post it and maybe it would help get enrollment up. If we get one kid to enroll in college from this, that’s such a beautiful thing,” Scott said of making the video. “You start to feel how it can affect people. I was a kid that was affected by dance. I remember the first time I put on a tap show, and that was it! It’s cool to know that there’s a real cause and effect from going to watch the movie.”
Were you surprised the book dance from “What is This Feeling” has gone as viral as it has?
It’s very surprising. If somebody had asked me if there’s one moment I thought would go viral, I did think it was this one. But I didn’t think it was going to happen. Because [the choreography] is hard. It blows my mind that people going home and focusing on that timing, rhythms and sharpness. It’s one of these little routines [Scott mimes patting his head and rubbing his stomach] and they’re doing it! But the dancers had a big reaction to that part and Ari had a big reaction to it, too. As someone who has her finger is on the pulse of pop culture, I was like, “OK, if there’s something, it might be this.”
You’ve said the way you choreographed “Wicked” wasn’t “traditional.” What do you mean by that?
A lot of dance styles aren’t represented in musical theatre. Even if the music genre has changed a bit, the dance hasn’t changed. There’s people out there like Rennie Harris, who’s put hip-hop in theater for years, or Camille A. Brown, who is doing brilliant work on Broadway right now. But at this scale, it’s harder to find. “Wicked” is 21 years old, so there was even less of it back then. Being able to tell stories through these different styles is very important to me.
How did you decide on the different dance styles? It’s not like you have Ariana Grande krumping. That wouldn’t necessarily be the way to go about it.
You never know — she might deliver. Her talent is crazy.
It starts with what makes sense. I don’t force a style into the space. For “No One Mourns the Wicked,” for example, there was talk about whether we would have dance in the opening number. There’s no dancing [on stage], so why are we doing it? Well, this is a war that just ended. [The people of Munchkinland] believe they’re safe now, so this is a celebration. This is their ritual and there’s tons of cultures that exist in real life that dance in celebration, so we pulled from that.
People that don’t like musicals always say, “I just don’t understand. Why do people start singing and dancing? That doesn’t happen in real life.” That’s not true. It absolutely happens in real life. When wars end, people go out in the street and they dance. There’s a famous clip at the end of World War II of a guy out in the street dancing through a crowd of people celebrating. So there’s a shot [in “Wicked”] where we cut wide and you see everybody skipping. That’s a direct homage to that moment.
The use of street dance styles in the Emerald City is very specific. A metropolitan city in Oz means we have tons of different types of people, so we’ve got to see a bunch of different types of dancing to make it feel like a real city. That’s why you have popping, vogue-inspired styles, jazz, moments of ballet, Afro dance styles.
Does “One Short Day” have the most people and the most going on?
That one had 160 dancers in it. We were typically around 60 to 90 [dancers]… maybe we hit 100 in another number. Then [production designer] Nathan Crowley made the biggest set we’ve ever seen, we had to fill it with people.
What was the number you developed first?
I started with “Dancing Through Life.” I love that song. I’m very Fiyero in that sense of just dance your feelings away. It’s also the closest movement language that I connect to — getting up on a table and kicking books.
It was like, “Alright, if I can crack this one…” and it’s, it’s a long number. A lot of story that happens in that number; it’s a big shift, because I take “Dancing Through Life” all the way through the Ozdust ballroom, and that’s a big journey.
Developing those two simultaneously allowed me to create the movement for Shiz, because I wanted it to have two different looks to the culture of university. The book dance — that’s not just dance steps, that’s the language. When they slap that book, it’s like “What does it look like to be like an anxious teenager?” There’s a reason its shoulders go up, over and down. We had to create that language of being tense and structured, so that when Fiyero comes to Shiz, he has something to disrupt.
Tell me about Ariana’s high kick in “Popular.” I understand that was something you discovered she could do in rehearsals?
Ari was just playing around and she kicks her face. Everybody around the room was like, “Where was that the whole time? We’ve got to put that in.” So we were like, “Where are we going to find this moment?” You can’t just let Ariana do a high kick for no reason.” I take that back. If anyone can sell that anytime anywhere, it’s Ariana Grande. But you want it to fit in the right spot. Of course, it was always going to be “Popular.”
We’d been trying to find a version of the dance that would happen inside the room. It had a little tap element to it. It was fun and cute, but it wasn’t it. We’re not a group to force anything, so we let it go. Then Ari got COVID, and we had some time and now we had the hallway [as a set piece]. The lighting was stunning; you could see the sunset turn pink in the dorm room. So somebody was like, “Should we do the extended version here?” Jon called me over and said, “Do you think you could teach her something?” I asked for two hours — they were able to give me an hour — and Ari learned it so fast. She was living her best life. She nailed it every take. Its must’ve been like 15 to 16 takes and she’s doing it over and over, like “leg, wham!”
What about Cynthia’s abilities stood out?
Cynthia is a real deal dancer. She was in a dance crew [in London] called Boy Blue. I was like, “I’ve gotta get ahold of Kenrick [Sandy, who co-founded the troupe].” He’s a big deal, a world-renowned figure. So I hired him. He has a moment in the Emerald City where he slams down a cane and dancers disperse. It’s a small thing, but it means the world to us because that’s Cynthia’s dance mentor.
Christopher Scott with Cynthia Erivo on the set of “Wicked.”
Giles Keyte
When Cynthia first came in, she looked at me and said, “Be hard on me” and I was. It’s challenging because Elphaba doesn’t dance in the Broadway version. When she goes into the Ozdust, she’s not comfortable as a dancer, but she doesn’t care. That’s their take — and a very specific one that works beautifully for the Broadway show. In our version, Elphaba does dance. She knows how to move, so we had to talk about her movement language.
When we talked about the character, Cynthia was adamant that this girl is not the raggedy poor girl. She’s rich, so let’s not ignore that. Everything was done with that in mind. Her posture is beautiful, exuding her background, and that helped me figure out how she’s going to move. Jon also showed me Cynthia’s audition, and I loved the way her hands moved. It was so natural; mesmerizing. There’s a lot of story that can be told through our fingers and your hands, so we tapped into that.
What about working with Jonathan Bailey on “Dancing Through Life?” He wasn’t as available during rehearsals because he was shooting another project. He just showed up and could slide books with his feet?
I didn’t know if he was gonna go be able to do that. I try to treat the actors like dancers first and foremost. I don’t like to assume they’re not going to be able to do something. I can say I want them to do this, but they’re the ones that have to deliver.
I remember that little book flip moment. I struggle doing it myself. But we found a way to make it work. There was never a feeling like we’d have to change it. [The actors are] smart, capable people, so I just figured they could always deliver. There wasn’t one thing I had to change for them because the dance too hard.
Christopher Scott with Jonathan Bailey on the set of “Wicked.”
What else should people know about what went into choreographing this film?
I want to set the record straight: Those books in the library are props. Those are fake, manufactured at Sky Studios in London. If you look closely, they aren’t book covers that we just slapped on some real books. Book community, I love you all. We would never dare. Barnes and Noble posted about it and the comments are hilarious. I promise — no books were harmed in the making of this film. My sister’s a professor. My mom’s an educator. There’s no chance I was kicking real books for that dance. They’d come snatch me off that set real quick.
