![]() Morris gets some inspiration from watching old videos and viewing vintage photos of chorus girl troupes, but unlike the concert placement of those original dancers, the Ragdolls' performance at the Ragtime Extravaganza is a headlining act. That’s sort of the lifeblood of the show.” “It’s incredibly important to me that we’re reuniting these things and getting back to that old spirit. “There are a lot of areas in which those are used separately right now: you have a lot of dancers performing to recorded music and a lot of musicians performing music that was traditionally done with dancers and is now being played for audiences without a visual aspect,” she said. Morris is dedicated to reuniting live music and dancers, which are rarely seen together these days but were inextricably intertwined during ragtime's heyday. I try to make it look very fresh, and illustrate the music that is happening.” ![]() I try not to choreograph typical flapper routines or typical Charleston routines. ![]() Like Miss Miranda, Morris also said, “I do really love the challenge of finding steps and movements that fit. Everyone else sticks to music that comes from the 1920s or later,” Morris said. “I think we are probably the only chorus girl troupe that dances to ragtime. The Ragdolls don't have any competition, either. And I said, ‘Yes, I do,’ even though I didn’t yet and then I set about creating one,” Morris laughed. ![]() “William Pemberton saw me out dancing at a jazz club and just said, ‘Hey, do you have a chorus girl troupe? Because I need one for this big theater show that I’m putting on. Choreographer and Ragdolls co-founder Erin Morris was out "cutting a rug" one night and Pemberton noticed. It’s quite liberating in that sense.”Įrin Morris & Her Ragdolls, a chorus girl troupe that performs every year at Ragtime Extravaganza, actually got their start because of the first event in 2011. "I kind of just go with the feel of the music and try and express emotionally what I want to do with it. “When I choreograph to period music I don’t feel that I have to stick to the type of dance that people would have done at the time," she said. Miss Miranda is particularly excited to put her own twist on ragtime burlesque routines. “You can express any kind of mood, any kind of character that you want, any kind of narrative that you want.” “One of the things that I love most about burlesque is how varied it can be,” she said. This year’s Extravaganza features a whirlwind variety of performers, including vocal quartet Three Men and a Tenor, U-M professor and bass-baritone Daniel Washington, pianist James Dapogny, tap dancer Bianca Revels from TV's So You Think You Can Dance, the chorus girl troupe Erin Morris & Her Ragdolls, and Miss Miranda, a top burlesque dancer from London.īurlesque was an integral part of the ragtime era, and Miss Miranda choreographed completely new dances to fit the look and feel of the Extravaganza. The River Raisin Ragtime Revue is ready to time travel with you to the early 1900s. And it’s just perfect and you can just feel the energy in the house.” “I love that it takes place in a 1920s vaudeville house," he said, "and the whole idea of it is to re-create a feeling of the golden age of American entertainment: the ragtime, the vaudeville, and the burlesque eras. And the Ragtime Extravaganza is the Revue’s biggest event each year - and by far "the most fun," Pemberton said. The Revue has grown to be one of southeast Michigan’s most respected performance groups, featuring musicians from across the state, including professors from Central Michigan and the University of Michigan’s music departments. He’s served as its president - and tuba player - ever since. Now, a hundred years after ragtime's apex, and 47 miles east of the Remick Music Shell, the sixth the annual Ragtime Extravaganza aims to recreate the look, feel, and sound of the music's classic era at the Michigan Theater on January 21.Įxtravaganza organizer William Pemberton has always loved ragtime music and founded the River Raisin Ragtime Revue in 2002. (Read a history of Detroit ragtime here.) In fact, the Remick Music Shell on Belle Isle is named for Jerome Remick, one of the biggest publishers of ragtime music. If the American ideal is defined by the coming together of various cultures to create a unique whole, then ragtime is the country's first musical example of that worldly synthesis.ĭeveloped in African-American communities in the 1890s, the music combines African rhythms and syncopations, European harmonies, marches, and a Latin tinge to create a sonic brew that the King of Ragtime, Scott Joplin, described as "weird and intoxicating."ĭetroit loved that weird intoxication and was a hub for ragtime during the music's peak period in the late 19th and early 20th centuries before it gave way to jazz. Into the valley of Erin Morris & Her Ragdolls.
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