Lynne Taylor-Corbett, ‘Footloose’ Choreographer, Dies at 78

Tony Award-nominated choreographer and director Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s diverse work includes commissions for the New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theater as well as Broadway musicals including “Swing!” and movies including “Footloose,” died Jan. 12 in Rockville Center, NY, on Long Island. He is 78 years old.

The cause of her death, at the hospital, was breast cancer, a 38-year-old survivor, said her son, Shaun Taylor-Corbett.

Ms. Taylor-Corbett, who was raised in Denver, moved to New York at age 17 to attend the School of American Ballet. His dream of building an en pointe career did not last long.

“I never really wanted to be a ballet dancer,” she said in a 1977 interview with The New York Times. “But I had a gift for theater and acting.”

He also had a gift for connecting with audiences, as shown by his work in Broadway musicals such as “Chess” (1988) and “Titanic” (1997), Hollywood films such as “Vanilla Sky ” (2001) and “Bewitched” (2005). ), and romantic ballets such as “Seven Deadly Sins” (2011), a 1933 New York City Ballet production of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, originally written by George Balanchine, which he directed and he led.

“My goal as a dancer and choreographer is to be understood,” he told The Times. “Dance should not be an imaginary experience that the dancer and the audience have. I want the dancer to convey something and the audience to get the same thing.

A pioneering female ballet choreographer in a male-dominated field, she prioritized emotion as much as technical precision in beautiful works such as “Chiaroscuro” (1994), for City Ballet. .

“Lynne’s ballets inhabit people — people with emotions of love and despair, joy and sorrow, regret and redemption,” said Melissa Podcasy, a principal dancer who often worked with Ms. Taylor-Corbett, by email.

His published dance, “Great Galloping Gottschalk” (1982), based on the work of 19th-century New Orleans composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk, highlighted this principle. Her production, for the American Ballet Theater in New York, received mixed reviews from Anna Kisselgoff in The New York Times, but Ms. Kisselgoff acknowledged that it was “joyful and uplifting” and “a great success in “the public”.

“The full house, in fact, gave Ms. Taylor-Corbett and the ballet the kind of raucous reception reserved for occasional works, and certainly not this ‘Great Galloping Gottschalk,'” said Ms. Kisselgoff wrote. “It’s a real crowd pleaser.”

But that’s the important thing. “I wanted to bring dance to a wider audience,” Ms. Taylor-Corbett said in 1977. “It’s not high art.”

His appeal reached an apotheosis in the 1999 Broadway musical revue “Swing!,” which he both produced and directed. It was quite an achievement for a woman in those days to simply take on a major production. “Most of the directors are men,” she said in a film interview last year, “and I have very few colleagues who have been successful at that, so the role models are limited.”

“Swing!”, a survey of the swing dance genres that flourished during the big band era, is “a celebration of our American folk dance.” he said in a video interview in 2013. The show had no dialogue; its narrative was expressed only through music and dance — including a special acrobatic bungee number. “It’s not meant to be a linear revue,” he said, “it’s going to be a giant party.”

In a less-than-charitable review for The Times, Ben Brantley called out “Swing!” “A musical revue that takes its word seriously,” and says it “seems to be in a clean, cool limbo.” However, the show earned Ms. Taylor-Corbett several award nominations, including Tonys as choreographer and director.

Lynne Aileen Taylor was born on December 2, 1946 in Denver, the daughter of Travis Henry Taylor, a high school vice principal, and Dorothy (Johnson) Taylor, a music teacher and Juilliard-educated pianist who gave Lynne. his early introduction to music and dance.

After graduating from Littleton High School in Littleton, Colo., a suburb of Denver, in 1964, Lynne went to New York, where she ended up as a hatcheck girl for a Mafia club and a conductor at The New York State Theater (now the David H. Koch Theater) at Lincoln Center, home of the New York City Ballet. Patrolling the corridors gave him the opportunity to study the work of great choreographers such as Jerome Robbins and George Balanchine.

Although she never achieved her dream of becoming a prima ballerina, Ms. Taylor-Corbett made her mark as a dancer. He toured Africa and the Middle East in the late 1960s as the only white member of Alvin Ailey’s celebrated dance company.

After leaving the company, she danced on Broadway in shows including “Promises, Promises,” the 1968 musical by Neil Simon and Burt Bacharach, and Cy Coleman’s “Seesaw.” and Carolyn Leigh (1973). She later auditioned for the role of Cassie in “A Chorus Line.”

Gradually, however, she began to see her future in choreography, although she continued to dance for several years. “Five years ago, my legs and arms and body were the reason for my work,” he told The Times in 1977, “and now it’s my mind and my mind.”

His career took a turn in 1972 when he helped found the Theater Dance Collection, a company that used storytelling, poetry and song with the goal of “changing the image of dance, making it entertainment and art,” said The Times. With little interest in the intellectual boundaries of dance, its founder called himself “derrière-garde”.

He later carved a niche in Hollywood – not to mention 1980s lore – by setting the stage for Kevin Bacon’s famous acrobatic solo dance in “Footloose” (1984), a comedy by Herbert Ross about a Midwestern teenager who goes his own way. -repression of the city.

In addition to her son, Mrs. Taylor-Corbett is survived by five sisters, Sharon Taylor Talbot, Kelly Taylor, Janny Murphy, Leslie Taylor and Kathleen Taylor. Her marriage to music executive Michael Corbett ended in divorce in 1983.

Ms. Taylor-Corbett has worked with ballet companies around the world, including more than 25 years with the Carolina Ballet in Raleigh, N.C. In 2009, she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award. for the choreography for “My Vaudeville Man!,” he. which he also led.

In recent years, Ms. Taylor-Corbett has become obsessed with “Distant Thunder,” a Native American-themed musical she created with her son, a Broadway actor himself, who starred in the production. Off Broadway which had a limited run last fall.

“Distant Thunder,” which features actors of Native descent, centers on a member of the Blackfeet Nation who was removed from tribal land as a boy, only to return years later as a successful lawyer with an ambitious plan. The subject matter goes far beyond his previous life experiences, but Shaun Taylor-Corbett says his mother was always looking to push past her comfort zone to tell new stories.

“Every life requires some creativity,” Ms. Taylor-Corbett said in a 2024 video interview, “but the life of an independent artist requires constant creativity. I mean, how do each of us become who we are? I believe it’s important to tell our stories, and leave whatever wisdom we can.”