Fiddler On The Roof Analysis

There are key moments in his choreography of balletic sequences that show a dream of what the world could be like. This is Robbins views of how America should be and gives the audience hope of another way the country can be. He constantly hid from what society believed he was. Jerome Robbins was prone to the particular pressures and politics that classified him in the 1950s as a Jewish, gay, former Communist Party member. He cleverly places these themes within his works showing the changes society is going through with West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof. West Side Story shaped the way American society views love and hope. NYC in the early 1960’s had many gangs all over Manhattan competing for control of neighborhoods. The competition

The original choreography shows the sacred authenticity of the Jewish tradition “executing the steps of Jerome Robbins’s exacting choreography, through the down-beat foot-stamps and counterpoint toe-taps” (Solomon). It goes on as the men sink slowly together onto their knees and slide forward as a whole group from that position, thrusting out one leg diagonally, heel on the floor, and pulling their crouched bodies along behind, and then again, across the opposite diagonal. They finish, rising to a standing position, and catch the bottles they let drop from their heads, then swerve and bend to the music, eventually forming a circle and inviting all the bar Mitzvah guests to join in a mass hora. This choreography is a sacred trace marker of the Jewish culture and Jerome Robbins executes the movement as a perfectionist would. In the original Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof, every man moves in complete unison to create a force of tradition that will challenge the tests of time and exist for centuries to come as it already has in the centuries prior. The Bottle Dance is a testament to the Jewish tradition. Fiddler on the Roof is about the Jews in the Russian shtetl of Anatevka in 1905 and centers on Tevye, the father of five daughters, and his attempts to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural traditions as

Jowitt writes that “Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz became Jerome Robbins because he was ashamed of his Jewish name. But his directing and choreography for the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof celebrated life in a Polish Jewish village” (Hering). Robbins grew up in a Jewish neighborhood and was engulfed in this culture through dance and movement during his earlier years as a dancer. The Mccarthy Era made Robbins uncomfortable to being Jewish as it linked him closer to accusations of communist ties. For that, this made him ashamed of being Jewish. Robbins was filled with contradictions. He constantly made shows as a mask of his personal beliefs that he wasn’t able to express publicly during the McCarthy Era. In this way, he internally affected society with his movement styles. Robbin’s work suggests the creative process of a conflicted man in times of hysteria in American culture. But, it isn’t certain that unified movements have shaped live theatre until we explore other artists who grappled with similar movement styles to reflect the social changes going on in America through 1940’s to