o inspire me, so a good pianist means a
lot. Insist upon one who reads easily and who can play by ear as well.
If you have a rotten piano player the numbers will usually turn out to
be terrible. There must be something in the way the number is played
to make the members of the chorus want to dance.

After we get the numbers taught--that is, the songs--then I start to
teach the ensembles to dance the different routines. I pick out what I
would say would be the "hit" number of the show, the best popular
tune, something that appeals to me, that has a production idea in
the lyric. It is usually in 4-4 tempo, what I call the song-hit tempo.
I pick out this one song and we try a simple soft-shoe movement to the
chorus of it. Our routines fit any 32-bar chorus. I work with the song
for a while, then give them a 5-minute rest. Then I may pick out a
waltz number and try a few steps to that 3/4 tempo. But first of all
they are in a ring in a circle around me, and they first are required
to walk in time to each tune in the show.

[Illustration: DOROTHY DICKSON AND CARL HYSON]

I show them how to walk in time to the music. You begin with your left
foot and walk 8 steps in strict time with the music, then you take
four steps in half-time, counting one-and on each side, taking a step
on the flat of your left foot for the count of 1, then bringing the
ball of the right foot up behind the left heel and touching the floor
with the ball of that foot for the count of "and"; the same with the
right foot, and so on. The complete movement being in strict time and
"4-and" for half-time.

There may be eight, twelve, sixteen or sometimes twenty-four numbers,
and the people are made to walk around in circular formation in time
with the music, until they walk gracefully without any awkward
mannerisms. Now, there will always be somebody who will start with the
wrong foot. Someone will always be out of time. Some of them are born
without a sense of rhythm. They don't belong in the show and they must
be eliminated if you are going to make a success of the ensemble work;
only people who do modern dancing well should attempt the dancing.

We go along and teach our regular routines, whatever I lay out for the
show, but working on every number at the same time, doing maybe four
steps for one number, four for another, and so on, until I have laid
out the whole show in my mind. I never lay a show out in advance. I
do my best work on the spur of the m