Theater	Gypsy Legacy by Thomas Dooney

They still call themselves gypsies, those performers who sweat in rehearsals only to glow on stage. Afterwards they wring themselves out, pack up and move to the next show in the next city. It is a term used with pride and respect. Those two characteristics are the foundation of Lisa Mordente’s legacy.

“I’m all about legacy these days,” she confesses. “These days” refers to the gig that brings Mordente to Buffalo. She is dance captain and swing dancer for the national tour of Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life, which showcases choreography of some of the Broadway’s dance masters.

As captain, she monitors the integrity of the moves so that every Bob Fosse shoulder drop is deliberately nonchalant, each Jack Cole pastiche is stylistically true and a Jerome Robbins leap is not just graceful but meaningful. Every once in a while, she swings into one of the dance roles herself.

Her gypsy travels brought Lisa Mordente to Buffalo many years ago. Sunset, a musical which opened at Studio Arena in 1977, attempted to cash in on two trends of the day: nostalgia for the movies’ golden age and disco. A glamorous star from the 1940s tries to revive her career by recording a new album of her old songs. The sheet music falls into the hands of an up-and-coming singer who records the old ballads with a backbeat and a five-minute dance break. All this—in addition to some sex, drugs and rock and roll mayhem—takes place in a recording studio on Sunset Strip. (Hence the title.)

Glamorous star Alexis Smith was cast accordingly, hot from Broadway success in the original production of Follies. Tommy Tune directed and choreographed, just after his off-Broadway success staging The Club. The score was by Will Holt and Gary Friedman, just after their success with The Me Nobody Knows. And there was Lisa Mordente as Crystal Mason, the up-and-comer.

“I was never concerned about that show’s expectations for success,” Mordente makes clear. “I was having too much fun.

“I have always been what you’d now call a Turner Classic Movie freak…I watch all the old movies and none from my time. I learned so much from Alexis. And that was awesome. She told me everything…all the stories about all the people in the old days.”

The show did not succeed in New York City and its name changed to Platinum. Joe Layton came in to replace Tommy Tune, Bruce Vilanch came in to doctor the script and the show lasted a scant month at the Mark Hellinger Theater. That building is now a church.

Mordente’s attitude proves that, regardless of the caliber of the show, a gypsy rehearses and performs as if it were the best show ever, regardless of the show’s success or failure. What matters is that you do well and what you come away with. What Mordente most often cites are the friends she has made, the dancers she respects.

Lisa Mordente (right) in "Sunset" at Studio Arena.

Dancers she respects populate The Dancer’s Life. Most she has known for years, some since childhood dance classes. Still, she is awed by the cast’s collective history. “This show,” she boasts, “probably has what will be the last of the great companies…the craft, the precision…the combination of a star like Chita and all these very experienced people…they have been around and they can do anything.”

During the tour, audiences all over the country witness the acting, dancing and musical talents that made Rivera a star on Broadway. Serving as raconteur of her own life story provides audiences with an additional insight, which Mordente confirms: Chita is very funny. Wryness informs her dramatic performances. Watching tapes of The Rink, the 1984 show for which Rivera won her first Tony Award, we see an earthy, working-class woman whose sense of humor is her survival mechanism.

“She is hysterical,” Mordente continues. “She can tell me a story and have me rolling on the floor. And she’s like Lucille Ball, a clown. She can also do that kind of comedy.

“When Chita, Grazi and Terrence put together the show,” says Mordente (Grazi being director and choreographer Graciella Danielle and Terrence being playwright Terrence McNally), “Terrence would say, ‘You have to tell all! People want to know.’ But she is not a gossip and will not say things about people just for effect. A story has to be respectful and fun.”

According to Mordente, the stories told in The Dancer’s Life are as purposeful as steps in a Robbins ballet. “It might be told first to show Chita’s youthful point of view,” explains Mordente, “and then how she has matured, grown, changed.”

Mordente adds, “This is not an act. She’s not doing it for effect. She is doing it for a reason. The Dancer’s Life is a living archive of theater dance from her point of view.”

Dancer’s need legacy, Mordente reasons, to broaden their frame of reference. Without a sense of what all dancers can do, a young dancer only imitates the most recent dancer seen. “Otherwise,” she says, “they are just thrashing.” That is why she instructs her youngest students to look beyond Britney Spears to Michael Kidd, Gower Champion and others.

With respect, pride and perspective, sustaining the Chita Rivera legacy is an inherent part of Lisa Mordente’s job. Lisa Mordenta is Chita Rivera’s daughter. “Part of my job on the tour,” the gypsy heiress points out, “is to keep Mamma happy. We are spending lots of quality time together.”

For anyone needing a crash course on the subject, before or after seeing The Dancer’s Life, the Web site www.chitarivera.com provides ample Riveriana for theater fans. The site could be considered exhaustive if the subject herself were not so limitless. Enough said.

Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life continues at Shea’s Center for the Performing Arts through June 3. For tickets call 852-5000 or go online to www.ticketmaster.com.