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Video: Broadway's Best Dancers Come Out to Celebrate Their Chita Rivera Awards Nominations
May 17, 2024
On May 22, Broadway's best dancers and choreographers will gather at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts (566 LaGuardia Place off Washington Square Park) to celebrate the 2023 Chita Rivera Awards. In this video, watch as performers from Dancin', andamp; Juliet, A Beautiful Noise, New York, New York, Some Like It Hot, and more come out to celebrate their nominations. Check out a full list of nominees here!
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0:00
Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World
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The 23 Cheetah Rivera Awards nominations, which are given for outstanding excellence in dance
0:07
have been announced, and we're here at Bond 45 to celebrate with some of this year's nominees
0:14
You look stunning as ever. Thank you so much. I try. Let's talk about today what this means to you
0:22
All the nominees are going to be here today for these beautiful Cheetah Rivera Awards
0:26
What that means to you? Well, it just means that we have to work hard
0:34
And in order to work hard, in order to have wonderful dancers
0:42
you need to be interested. And you have to have people on your side
0:51
And I'm on their side, you know. And we need, we need, we need
0:59
talented people, you know, and we need to advertise it, you know
1:08
What's great about your awards are you give them for the dancer. And that's what, you know, when people come to a musical or whatever in town, what do they want to see
1:16
They want to see great dancing, right? That's exactly right. And if you have an award, maybe that might be interesting to a person that wants to do, to do a person
1:29
it. But you need dancers. You need lots of dancers. And what you said is absolutely true
1:40
When you come to see to New York, you want to see a Broadway show and you want to see
1:46
dancing. And we need attention made to the choreographers and the dancers
1:57
I was going through the list to everybody, Sergio Trejillo. All these boys, they all start as Cheetah's boys
2:03
and now they're all choreographing and winning awards on Broadway. That's exactly
2:07
I just went up in goose pimples because I so proud of them and they they keep it alive They keep it theater alive
2:20
And Wayne has done such an unbelievable job with Bob Fosse's work
2:27
You know, and so long live the dancer. And one special thing is your Lifetime Achievement Award
2:35
you're giving to John Cantor, which I think is just, It's a no-brainer, but that must make you feel so great
2:42
Well, there's nothing I can say that can beat the joy that I have for giving John and John accepting the award
2:58
Because John, with Fred Ebb, are responsible for me even standing here
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You know, so you give and you're taking, you're giving, you're taking, you're giving, you're giving, and you're giving, you give, and you give
3:13
You know, so I'm lucky. Can I tell you it is so great to see Broadway back and alive and alive with dance
3:22
And let's remember that that's what these awards are really about. So to see this room right now filled with so much talent, and these are the ones that are making it happen eight times a week on the Broadway stages, it's so, it's incredible
3:34
and to have Cheetah with this as well because she is the inspiration of it all. She has taught us all how to make this happen
3:40
All right, so how excited are you for this nomination coming from Cheetah Rivera
3:44
Thank you, Cheetah. It's awesome. It's fun. And I also just love
3:48
that dancers are celebrated in this way with this award. Because this is the award that nominates dancers
3:55
right across the board. Ensembles, choreographers, and then they single people out to run too
4:01
Completely. And it's really cool because also everyone, understands each other. You know what I mean
4:06
It's like everyone who's there understands about dancing because it's all about dancing, which is great
4:11
And also the Ensemble Award is so cool and it gets the ensemble so excited
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and makes them feel like they're acknowledged, which sometimes they aren't as much as they need to be
4:20
So that's really fantastic. It is such an honor to be recognized by the Chita Rivera Awards because this is about dance And like dance is such an important part of Broadway and it such an important part of the storytelling in our show And our cast is so incredible and the work they do is so beautiful
4:36
and it is imperative to our show. And so it's just fabulous to have everybody recognize
4:40
and to have the community come together to celebrate, like, this just incredible language that, you know, reaches everybody
4:50
I am so happy when I heard who they would give I've been the Ambassador of the Arts Award at the Cheetah Rivera Awards
4:56
What does this award mean to both of you? Well, first off, that it's named after Cheetah Rivera
5:00
and we have Cheetah streaming and Pippin on Broadway HD. So to be able to, you know, accept an award like this for preserving and promoting live theater
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by expanding the fan base of the theater with digital. It's like, it's just a dream come true for us
5:17
Being able to make theater affordable and accessible to a much wider audience
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has been our dream and our mandate, at Broadway HD. So being honored here by the Cheetah-Rivir Awards
5:27
has been, frankly, a lifelong dream because I knew Doug Watts as a critic
5:33
from the Daily News. So this is really quite an event. This nomination means so much to me
5:38
to be recognized by, you know, the Broadway community in general, as a filmmaker
5:43
You know, we put so much heart and soul to making our documentary following the Broadway community
5:47
as it reopened. And so, yeah, so excited. A double. Two nominations from the Cheetah Rivera Awards
5:54
I mean, what is this honor being to you? Honestly, this is a huge honor
5:58
I'm such a Cheetah Vera fan. I'm just being Latino, and she was who we looked up to as children
6:05
So, yeah, and a double nominee is amazing. Just my Broadway debut in New York, New York
6:09
Got the nomination for that. And then one of my managers sent me in the nomination for the choreography
6:14
I was like, wait, what is happening? Like, it was definitely a pinch me moment. This is a very special nomination
6:19
I feel like to be recognized among, my peers and the dance community is the greatest gift of all these are the most
6:27
lovely wonderful hard-working people I believe in the industry I'm biased of course but it feels really special to come together to celebrate everyone hard work I am beyond thrilled first of all Cheetah Rivera is of course like a personal idol of mine She an icon and dance and acting and singing in a Latina actress
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So it's someone I've looked up to personally my entire life. So that is special in itself
6:54
And then just to be able to be here and celebrate in community with such a beautiful
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group of people and celebrate dance and celebrate theater is just incredibly special for me
7:06
What's made this so special with working on Bob Fawce's dancing with Wayne Salentia
7:10
Oh, I mean, God, to have that legend in the room with the history and have him strike a pose and kind of go
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I'm like, okay, that's what it's supposed to look like. Got it. So to be here under his guidance and support and the ways in which that he allowed all of us to kind of step into our own
7:27
and take ownership of this show, I think it's a real testament to why the show was nominated
7:32
and why so many of these performers were nominated, absolutely. It's really beautiful and exciting to be recognized because so much of the atmosphere comes from what the noise contribute to the show
7:41
So it's just really exciting to have that recognition. Many, many hours in the rehearsal process with Stephen Hogget, our choreographer
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Devin Ritchie, our associate choreographer, a lot of time and love, sweat, and tears poured into the show in our choreography
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It's paid off, and it's very humbling that we're acknowledged this way. We're so excited
8:00
I mean, I think that what's kind of special about our ensemble is that we're made up of people
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that might identify as dancers primarily first, and people that might identify as singers or actors first
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And so, but we're all out there doing the same movement and supporting each other and having a blast
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And so I think it's really exciting to get recognized in this way. I mean, in Angeliette, our cast
8:18
we have the absolute best time. We are family, the amount of love and like the gorgeous, beautiful work ethic
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we all have with each other as one thing. But being here today, being nominated
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just brings everything to a whole new level. And it's just such an honor
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being surrounded by this many incredible people, like history. Like it's just iconic. Iconic
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Dance in this show is such a big part of the storyline and tells so much of the story. So it's
8:44
such an honor to be here with this incredible group of people. We are so so grateful for this
8:49
nomination and to be led by our fearless leader, Jen Weber. It's really such an honor
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