Dance

She was on track to be a ballet dancer, but her dreams were thwarted. By the time Holly Cruikshank stopped growing she’d topped out at six feet. When her teacher took her and several of her classmates to New York to audition, Cruikshank found herself dismissed before she even had a chance to show off her talents. ‘I was just too tall,’ she says. ‘I was devastated, but my teacher suggested that maybe I should go audition for a Broadway show instead.

‘I did, but I was sort of hopeless,’ she laughs. ‘I went to the audition in my ballet gear with my hair in a pony tail. I was told to go home, put on some makeup, do something with my hair and come back in high heels.’ Feature continues

It worked. She was hired to play one of the leggy showgirls in Tommy Tune’s ‘The Will Rogers Follies’ at just 18. She’s been a Broadway dancer ever since, including a stint as the lead in Susan Stroman’s ‘Contact’. Now Cruikshank is making her West End debut in ‘Movin’ Out’, the Twyla Tharp and Billy Joel spectacular.

‘This show doesn’t really fit into any category,’ Cruikshank says. She’s right. ‘Movin’ Out’ is unlike anything else you’ve ever seen.
The story is told through the lyrics of Joel’s songs – sung from the piano by James Fox, a Welshman who has already been a part of the American touring company. He leads a band perched on a gantry hovering above the stage. His is the only voice you hear – none of the other cast members either sing or speak. But, my God, do they dance – non-stop for nearly two hours through 27 songs which Tharp has arced together as a ‘coming of age’ saga that stretches from 1965 to 1984, and travels from small town to Greenwich Village and, of course, to the battlefields of Vietnam.

The outcome is both exuberantly feel-good and a sharp look at the souring American Dream. The dark scar of war burns into all of their lives.
Cruikshank plays Brenda. Her rough and tumble journey from rowdy teens to hard-won maturity is a chequered one, muddied and muddled by sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll, and distorted by the War. It culminates in one of the hottest duets ever choreographed. Danced to Joel’s ‘Shameless’, it’s a down and dirty outpouring of want and need compressed into an coruscating four minutes of dance that is daring to the point of dangerous.

‘It’s my favourite number,’ Cruikshank admits. ‘It’s so intimate and so liberating, and because it comes close to the end of the show you don’t have any resistance left, you just do it. You’re using every last bit of energy to throw yourself into it.’

‘Movin’ Out’ ran in New York for more than three years and won Tharp a Tony Award for choreography. It has already grossed more than a hundred million dollars stateside. Cruikshank has been with it all along. ‘I never thought I’d be doing one show for four years. But it’s such a dream show. It’s a great, fulfilling role, to say nothing of being the highest paid dance job you can get in America.’

The show is so demanding on its four leading dancers that they are all double cast. Cruikshank does five of the weekly performances. ‘Not doing eight shows a week really helps,’ she says. ‘I know the nature of this show. This show is hard and there are always people out. It’s like a sports team.’ Every night the understudies have various costumes laid out and ready in the wings, so if anyone is injured they can jump in immediately.

Cruikshank herself has had a remarkably injury-free career; though while ‘Movin’ Out’ was in previews she was spending all of her off-stage time on painkillers and with an ice pack. ‘My whole life revolved around my knee,’ she groans. ‘As soon as the show opened in New York, and we knew we were a hit, I scheduled myself for surgery. I was out for seven weeks, but I was scared. At the time I thought I would never dance again.

‘Now, I’m addicted to yoga. I’d like to run to keep up my stamina, but jogging is bad for the knees, so… My own personal regime means that I am always at the theatre preparing, warming up, at least two hours before we start.’

Like many another Yank, Cruikshank is surprised that Billy Joel isn’t a mega-star in London. ‘At home, he is absolutely huge. You know he broke all records at Madison Square Garden recently.’ That means he topped Dylan, the Stones and even John Lennon.

‘I grew up on Billy Joel, so I’m curious about the London audience,’ Cruikshank says. ‘This is not your typical musical and audiences don’t know what to expect, but once they’re in the theatre they’re hooked.’

Twyla Tharp, 64, has been a dance legend for decades – not only through more than 100 dances she’s devised for her own contemporary company, but also for commissions that have ranged from American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet to the Paris Opera and the Royal Ballet. She has choreographed five Hollywood films, including ‘Hair’ and ‘Amadeus’.

‘Movin’ Out’ is her fourth Broadway show and there is another – this time to Bob Dylan tracks – already in the works. It had workshop performances last month in California and the entire run was sold out before it even opened. After a summer of further rehearsals, it will open in New York this autumn .

Tharp herself knows that she’s cleverly sugar-coated a significant message about the savagery of war within ‘Movin’ Out’. ‘People don’t listen to preachers,’ Tharp says, ‘but audiences aren’t stupid.

‘Look,’ she says with a jab of her finger, ‘anyone with a brain in their head knows which war I’m really talking about.’