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Wicked Moves with Christopher Scott

Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) steps down the steps, rests her hat on the floor and takes in the Ozdust Ballroom in Wicked. She elevates her arm, bringing her bent wrist to her temple. Once in position, she wiggles her fingers. Something shifts. She continues, moving with a level of vulnerability that emanates from the silver screen. She writes something in the air with her elbow and swings her straight arms, carving her own path.

 

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The poignant scene choreographed by Christopher Scott is emotionally heavy and marks a turning point for Elphaba and Glinda (Ariana Grande-Butera). Scott is not new to choreographing for the big screen. He’s best known for his work in the Step Up franchise as a dancer and choreographer. He is also a three-time Emmy-nominated choreographer for his work on So You Think You Can Dance, from his genre-blending 2018 group routine “Prism.” His dance practice is particularly rooted in his hip hop and street dance background, crafting bold movement narratives in entertainment with his innovative approach to movement. 

For Scott, the Ozdust Ballroom scene was a difficult and intimate section of Wicked, one of the highest-grossing movies of the year. The scene took about two weeks to rehearse—one with a skeleton crew of dancers and another with the cast. The process was unlike most of the film for many factors, including its place in the story and the scene’s conditions. 

Fjord Review spoke with Scott over Zoom to discuss all things Ozdust Ball to get an inside look at how the team brought the magical moment from the rehearsal room to the screen. 

Starting pretty broad, what was the process and timeline for creating the choreography of the Ozdust Ballroom scene?

Christopher Scott: I have a background in theater, and as a kid, I would go to theater camp and stuff and I always loved the process that theater implements. Sometimes I like to bring that into the film side of things, just because there’s a lot more exploration and collaboration. I started creating choreography on a day that we were rehearsing something else. Everybody was behind me. It was the whole skeleton of like, 20 dancers in a giant studio space. I came with a bunch of moves, and I didn't really love them from the beginning, but I was like, I have to get it started. It wasn't about making Elphaba a bad dancer. It was about making her different. That was the theme. And you have Cynthia Erivo, a phenomenal dancer, and we didn’t want to completely ignore that. I've had a lot of talks with Cynthia about her character and how she wanted to play it and one of the things that stood out to me was when she's like, ‘My character comes from wealth, and I think it's important for us to lean into that a bit more.’ It's not that she’s poor and everybody's rich. They’re judging her based on the color of her skin, and that's a very specific judgment that we're leaning into. 

Then I got home that night, and I knew I had Cynthia the next day for the first time. I didn't love the movement already. It wasn't the right environment to create. I called my associate choreographer, Comfort Fedoke, and I'm like, ‘Hey, are you down to come to the house? Let's build a couple of things.’ So, Comfort comes over. It's like 10 o'clock at night, we had a whole day of rehearsal, but we knew that this was one of the, if not the most important, moments to crack and shape.  There's a point when Comfort put her hand here, [he raises his hand to the side of his head] And I was like, ‘Oh, I love it.’ And I was like, ‘Twinkle your fingers.’ She did that and it felt like a bird. If she [Elphaba] is gonna dance a certain way, I think her biggest influence should be animals because they're the ones who love her. They're the ones who raised her, essentially, They're her close connection. It was like this magical moment at midnight. Cynthia walks into the room the next day and we just start showing her the moves. It's a lot to take in, because, again, this is a big moment for her, and we're building a language that she's going to have to speak. It’s basically like writing a little script with her. We don't even have music to guide us. There are no lyrics. She started working through the moves and we just started adapting as we went. Then there was a moment where Cynthia was like, ‘Can I try something?’ She puts on a song, and it's not the song you would expect. And she starts to do it to that. It helped build musicality that we didn't have from the acapella thing. It gave it a rhythm. Then there was a point where she's like, ‘Okay, I think I'm good. I don't need the music anymore.’ It always felt like we were building it. It never felt like it was locked in because we'll change it. If she feels something in the moment, we're going to change it. I'll never forget the first time Cynthia picked up the hat. When she put it on, everything in her body changed. We don't see it in the movie, but this is the moment she starts swaying her shoulders. Comfort and I were just like, ‘Oh, something has changed within her.’ We can see it. They're one now. 

This might be hit or miss. But when I saw Cynthia do that motion with the elbow, it made me think about Forsythe’s Improvisation Technologies and the exercise where you take a point of your body and write in the air. What inspired that moment? Was that Forsythe at work or was it something else that was thrown into the mix?

A hundred percent. It was writing in the air. So, you're educating me right now. I'm a fan of Forsythe, but I didn't train in that world. We spell stuff in the popping world all the time. For me, it was more of a street dance methodology. We build, make shapes, and we write things all the time. It was also in homage to a friend of mine, Ebony Williams, who was working on her own project, but we've worked together for years, and she would write stuff. That was the task. I told Cynthia to take the elbow and write whatever you wanted. Don’t even tell me. I don't want to know what you're writing. But at the end, you are going to sign it. Whatever you write, you're going to get that last line going across. It’s like a period. And then we told all the dancers too, so they're all writing something.  

Now that I know it has that popping background, how else has your background in the style influenced, not just the Ozdust Ballroom, but other portions of the choreography?

I've always looked at street dance specifically—and the hip hop genre—having a place in these stories, because we don't always see it in the theater setting. It's popping up more and more here and there. Rennie Harris is one of my heroes, and Rennie has been a big pioneer in hip hop theater and telling stories through hip hop. What I love about Oz is it's otherworldly, and I always look at street dance as otherworldly. It's magic to me when poppers wave and you're like, there's joints there. How are they waving through that? It has a fantasy element baked into the DNA. In animation, they would try to move like scarecrows. They would move like Tin Man. They would move like lions and animals. I think it's like a beautiful storytelling tool that's been overlooked for years. This story specifically has everything to do with Elphaba being oppressed for years. This woman's been oppressed for the color of her skin. That's heavy stuff. Hip hop and street dance were birthed out of BIPOC communities that come from oppression. The tool makes so much sense, and I love that we got to use it. 

I want to go back to the hand moment because that was another section that really stuck out to me. I felt like it became a motif throughout the entire film. What gravitated you all to that specific movement and the decision to make it something that would repeat throughout?

The repetition of it wasn't really in my mind from the creation of it. It’s like we're saying, ‘Hello.’ We're saying, ‘I'm sorry.’ We're saying, ‘I love you.’ It’s a gesture. We had a bunch of moves, and then it was like a puzzle piece. We locked it in as the first move. That one felt like the first gesture you make to somebody. I always felt like it was going to carry the special meaning behind it. Through the giant collaboration of everybody, that's what we're doing constantly. We're finding little gems here and there. At the train station, it became their little reminder, and we were all very protective of it to make sure that it was genuine and made sense. It really does become a mission and my job to make sure that anything movement-wise comes from a place of reality, and we don't just do it for no reason. It's a moment between them. It's a part of their language, and it came from Elphaba. I think that that adds a little extra weight there and makes it even more powerful because that moment [at Ozdust Ballroom] is Glinda stepping into her shoes for the first time. She’s risking being laughed at and ridiculed by stepping outside her comfort zone and popping that bubble for a second.

I know that you said you gave Cynthia Erivo just enough of the choreography and then she would fill out the rest of it. What was it like to witness her play around with it, and what do you think she brought to it? 

Cynthia brings everything to the moment. You can make up the steps all you want. You can have all the ideas behind it. But if that person can't tell that level of a story with the detail behind that woman's eyes as she's done, other people wouldn’t believe that this would really exist. No one has to believe it more than Cynthia Erivo. I could want people to believe it all I want, but if she can't deliver that, nothing else really matters. Ariana too. It's a heavy moment for both of them to tell those stories through dance. It's not easy, and I'm just very grateful that we had two real-deal theater performers who can translate movement. 

What was one of the biggest surprises while you came up with the choreography or any part of the process?

We could all really take our time in the scene. Because there was no music to give us these parameters, I think there was a freeing feeling there that allowed us to really dive in. It's hard because with all that freedom comes a lot of decisions. You have nothing guiding you. It's hard to commit. But I think that was also the biggest blessing, not being tied to music so that we could really let it breathe and take our time. 

Steven Vargas

Steven Vargas is a journalist, dancer and actor based in Los Angeles whose work focuses on the intersections of media, social justice, and performance. He graduated from USC with an MA in Specialized Journalism (The Arts) in 2022 and previously graduated from USC with a BA in Theatre and Journalism with a minor in Dance in 2020. His work can be found in the LA Times, E! News, USA Today, TheWrap, Dance Magazine, ARTnews, and more. 

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