Hoofing It on the Street of Dreams
by Stephen R. Wolcott
Sashay Back
(New York, late 1990.) A crowd of greasy-haired handsomeness swarms near a doorway in Times Square. They look like rejects out of “The Dead End Kids.” From the middle of the gang a dominant voice barks out strict orders: “Those—move two steps left. Crutches back up. Ogle, drift to the right.” The young hoofers shuffle about suspiciously, revealing their fearless leader—a figure smaller than most of the boys, but with steely blue eyes that look ready to signal a big routine. This is no street tough—the person demanding the boys’ attention is Peggy Holmes, choreographer, and she is about to create a key number on the set of Disney’s new musical, “Newsies.” Holmes displays a wide-eyed curiosity and youthful enthusiasm that makes one wonder if she just got off the bus from Kansas. But beneath her airy demeanor lies a spirited passion that reveals itself only when needed. “Most people think I’m someone’s little sister,” Holmes says. “I walk around in jeans and a T-shirt and the perception is ‘Who is this little kid?’”
Shuffle Forward
(Chicago, June 1993.) Choreographer Peggy Holmes stands immersed in a large, cavernous studio overlooking a row of ballet barres, preparing an internationally televised event for the World Cup. Her job is leading 10 dancers, 30 soccer players, and a 40-member chorus line through the opening ceremony of the event at Soldier Field. This isn’t the controlled environment of a studio back-lot. This is chaos at Soldier Field.
“It happened very, very fast,” Holmes says. “We got two days before we flew to Chicago. We didn’t have a studio. We had to put it together in six days.” She makes it sound like it’s all routine, another day at the factory. “The most challenging part is, we arrived in the middle of a wheel that was already turning,” she says. On the day of the event, Holmes had to close a 50-foot gap in the north side of the stadium so that performers could run clear access to the opening formation and then fall back into position. It proved more than just a little coordination challenge.
Arabesque, Triple Step, Jump!
These two examples from Ms. Holmes’ résumé show that each job involves many obstacles and unique difficulties. Each job is different from the others. The world of a professional choreographer is a perpetual game that can bounce one across the globe—and one can’t always anticipate where the work will lead. Peggy has trotted across the world with Michael Jackson (and has more than a few good stories from that). She’s been whisked off to Paris to work with a ballet company. At an early age, when offered a contract that required something she wasn’t comfortable with, she chose a different path. So she decided to let the performers’ own precious talents keep them in line, and it worked.
First Position
Holmes’ first major break as a choreographer came when she was asked to stage a now-famous musical number in the film “The Fabulous Baker Boys.” The song: “Makin’ Whoopee.” The singer: Michelle Pfeiffer.
“I worked it out on the floor of my living room and then—without changing a hair—brought it to life,” she says. “My job was simply to shape one scene. The moves were motivated by the characters themselves. Each of them was trying to make the other jealous. The line going out of the movie came from the character and not from choreography.”
Shimmy Left, Shimmy Right
When Disney’s “Newsies” came along, she faced a whole new set of obstacles—not the least of which was dealing with the domineering shadow of the Mouse hovering over her shoulder. Forget for the moment that period musicals are tricky cinematic material. Holmes barreled a young crop of untutored actors through some very intricate steps during a lengthy rehearsal schedule that required several late-night shoots to accommodate union regulations.
“You can only push them so far,” she says. “They’re kids, after all. They need to have fun. So we decided not to discipline them, but to let their own peer pressure keep them in line, and it worked.” Eventually, she developed a free-wheeling style of street dance that required the boys to look unprepared yet sincere, and then worked persistently to polish their routines. “Our philosophy was basic: You had kids who were living together, eating together, and developing a camaraderie—the bonding spoke for itself.”
By the end of the film, Holmes had the dancers barrel-jumping, with acrobats crashing up and down dusty streets, climbing fire escapes, swinging off light posts and hanging off the sides of moving trucks.
But being a choreographer requires more than what she knows best. At the Bette Midler film “Hocus Pocus,” Holmes had to find a way to make the filming easier by flying the lead actresses through the night sky on moonlit paths. That meant she had to pilot her own complicated flying harness through the scene before the actresses came on board.
Step Up, Step Out
Between gigs, Holmes doesn’t just sit around. She takes classes at the Tremaine Dance Center in North Hollywood, works on concepts at the Performance Arts Center in Van Nuys, or develops new projects at her Van Nuys home. A good dancer constantly adds to her repertoire, and the ambitions extend well beyond the here and now. “I always had an idea that directing was where I was going,” she says. And judging from her career thus far, directing may well be the next step. After all, this is Hollywood, the land where dreams come true. ♦