Video: DANCIN' Cast Celebrates Opening Night on Broadway

Hello, I'm Richard Ridge for Broadway World

Bob Fawsey's Dancing is back on Broadway for the first time in 45 years

It is directed and choreographed by Tony Award winner Wayne Salento, and we're here on Opening Night to celebrate with the company

Well, it is opening night, dapper as ever. How do you feel tonight

Thank you. I feel grateful. Just gratitude is leading everything. I've had a lot of, like, health complications

But thank God, my doctors took such good care of me and I can dance

I'm just like overly excited and grateful to be back on Broadway

I had my Broadway debut March 19th of 2009. And it's March 19th of 2023

So it's crazy. And it's been 13 years since I've opened a show. And it's really special that it's

gets to be dancing where dance is the star. I left the business because I felt like I wasn't seen

and I feel like I finally get to be seen as my full self

I feel wonderful. I feel wonderful. I don't think it really hit me how excited I was

until this very, very moment. Just trying to keep an ease to the day

but now it's just overwhelmed with so much joy and love. Definitely

I'm so excited. I mean, it's a bit chilly, but you know, I'm really

I'm like thrilled. I don't know what's gonna happen on that stage. going to go wild. I already know

Just truly overwhelmed, but also at peace, I think I trust this work so much and I trust

these people so much and I'm just so overjoyed to be celebrating each other on that

stage because it's really about like our experience. And of course it's for the audience, but we're just so used to celebrating each other and

just, you know, revving each other up in the show. So it's going to be no different to be honest

I'm so honored and humbled. I that just all I can think is I cannot believe I standing under this marquee that says Bob Fosse dancing With his company I know I know I look next to these people that I dancing with and I can even believe it Oh my gosh

I'm overwhelmed with emotion and joy and love and gratitude. It's really hard to put that into words how we have spent the last year putting this together

and doing this material that is so iconic and so exposing and so thrilling to do with a team

that I just have so much immense respect and love for. So I'm feeling all of the feelings all at once

Do you remember that defining moment when you said, I have to be a dancer? This is what I'm going to do

I started dancing when I was really young, three. So one of those things I've always known when I wanted to do

But when I met the Bob Fosse style, when I was introduced to it from Man Ranking

that's when I knew that that specific style is what I wanted to do

And I've been able to live my dream. I've done that. You know, my whole career, Fosse has been in the forefront

So I'm just so grateful. This is such a full circle moment for me and I couldn't be more thrilled

Yes, it was when my mom took me to go see dance leader of Harlem at the Kennedy Center

It was the first time that I had seen black and brown ballerinas and it changed my life

When you went to that first dance class, you're like, oh my God, I have to live in this world. Yes, 100%. I took my first ballet class and I was like, all I want to do is do this for the rest of my life

And then I pursued that from then going on. I remember watching Michael Jackson do the history tour and that want to be starting something

I was just like, oh yeah, I could do that. I'm going to go on tour with Michael. Not on tour with Michael, but this is pretty close

I have been dancing since before I can remember. Home videos date back to maybe two years old

and I've been taking class since I was three years old. So I think it's something that has always been part of who I am

whether it was when nobody was watching in the living room, dancing on the sofa and jumping around the space

I think I've always known that it's for me. it for me I think it was seeing any return Annie the movie That was my first time I was like oh I gonna be a dancer And then it happened Yes here I am isn it wild

You know what? I started dancing when I was so young. It's always been a part of my life

I don't have like a specific moment. It just, there was never any other option

And that's really kind of been my driving force. This is what I was meant to do

Honestly, for me, it was a TV show called So You Think You Can Dance

and I'm sure many people know, that my brother and I used to dance around our living room. our living room, like, around on the carpet

And my mom finally was like, it's time for a dance class. And so I think that that for me was the turning point

when I was about eight. And it's just been a whirlwind ever since

and now here we are. Yeah, when I was growing up, I did a lot of sports growing up

through school. And it was, you know, things start to get more intense

They schedules, you know, and I just couldn't imagine not doing dance

I was like, yeah, I could miss soccer practice. I can miss baseball, I can miss this, but I just couldn't miss dance

I was like, there's no way I'm missing dance class every day. So, yeah, that was the moment for me

I was like, I knew I wanted to be a dancer then, yeah. Yeah, when I was 10, I saw Wicked and moving out, moving out

and I said to my mom, I want to do that. And I spent from 10 to move to here when I was 18

and now I'm not going to say my age, but we made it

I'm 29. I'm proud of my age. What, it must have been really great, though. You just know that defining moment when you're in a dance class

You're like, my God, this is the world I want to live in. Yeah, just seeing, well, seeing it happen on stage

Everything that I do, every class I take is for something and can be for something and I can make it my life

It's amazing. I mean, I grew up in a dance family, like my family owned a dance studios, so I always felt at home with dance

I started dancing when I was two. And, you know, dance has always been home for me, so, yeah

I was talking about this with a friend last week where I was like, it was always the

people and the music and the fact that you get in this room and you're creating and sweating

and going through something with artists And that always what it was I don remember a moment but I remember going to a dance class and being like I go again tomorrow and tomorrow and now it today And I like I can stop

And now you're on Broadway. And now I'm on Broadway, baby, yeah. Yeah

I saw my first Broadway show, actually, and I saw my first concert dance

and I saw Alvinalee for the first time actually, and I knew that I wanted to dance

I knew this what I wanted to do. But never in a million years that I think I would be doing it on Broadway

in a show called Dancing and doing Fossi's work. Oh, yes. I saw guys and dolls on Broadway with Faith Prince and Nathan Lane

And I was just, I was actually heading toward, I was on the ballet route

And that show, that show in particular made me want to do Broadway and want to do musical theater as well

I wanted to dance in companies as well. But that show really made me want to do a 360 and want to be on the Broadway stage someday

It was actually when I was in high school. I went to LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts

And I had a teacher who said, if you wake up and you feel like you need to, you need

to move, you need to dance, and you cannot envision your life without it, then you are meant to be a dancer

And I literally woke up the next morning and said, I need to do this. And since then, I have been like head forward, tunnel visioned

We are doing it and we are doing it. You know, like, first dance studio you were in, you're like, oh my gosh, I love this world

I do. I just thought it was just a passion. At first, I didn't know I had opportunities to do it in the future until really seeing those dance companies

And I was lucky enough to have an incredible mentor who, introduced me to Fosse as well, and so it feels very full circle

He was the first choreographer that I knew that did this professionally as well

And now you are Broadway. Yes, dancing his work. How cool