The unexpected choreographic career of Elizabeth Aldrich: an expert on Renaissance dance now creates steps for the ultimate twentieth-century art form

Dance Magazine, March, 1995 by Lynn Garafola

Later this spring, when Jefferson in Paris opens in cinemas across the country, Elizabeth Aldrich will mark another milestone in her unexpected career as a movie choreographer. Jefferson is her fifth picture as a member of the Ismail Merchant-James Ivory "family" and her sixth film, counting Martin Scorsese's Age of Innocence. She knows her name will be among the credits (although in small print), but she's still amazed by the twist of fate that led to its being there at all.

A graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music and a student of Renaissance dance, Aldrich got into the movie business by accident. "My good friend Richard Robbins had begun to do the music for Merchant Ivory Productions. In The Europeans, there were a couple of dance scenes so he called me up, knowing full well I didn't know anything past 1580, and asked if I would be willing to do the dances, which were from the 1840s. I said, 'Of course not.' Then he called me again. 'I'd like you to meet Ismail Merchant, the producer. He's going to take us to lunch.' We had a wonderful picnic in Central Park. That was my first lesson in how producers work. Inside of fifteen minutes I had agreed to do the film."

Aldrich doesn't choreograph musicals or big production numbers. In the Merchant-Ivory films that she's worked on (The Europeans, Quartet, Mr. & Mrs. Bridge, The Remains of the Day, and now Jefferson in Paris) her assignment is to create dances that complement the action while remaining in the background. The challenge, she explains, is twofold. Not only do the dances have to be appropriate" in terms of period and style; they also have to blend into the scenery, like a sofa or a chair. Sometimes, as in the tearoom scene in Remains of the Day, where the waltzing couple seems to merge into the period decor, her contribution is so unobtrusive as to go practically unnoticed. When this happens, Aldrich counts the job as a success.

She has particularly fond memories of the 1930s prom scene she did for Mr. & Mrs. Bridge. "I worked for a couple of days with about fifty teenagers," she recalls. "They were very energetic but had no sense of partnering. I had to teach them everything, including, if you can believe it, how to hold each other. Between takes, Joanne Woodward, whose performance as Mrs. Bridge was nominated for an Academy Award, went around straightening their ties and fixing their hairdos. She was like a mom to them."

Like most of the "dancers" used in Merchant Ivory films, none of these teenagers was a professional. Part of the reason for using amateurs, Aldrich explains, is economic. However sumptuous Merchant-Ivory films may look, they are nonunion productions made on a shoestring and shot mostly on location; for extras, people living in the vicinity are usually used, which also adds to the realism of the film. Aldrich says, "Sometimes we've literally gone out into the street and asked people, `What are you doing for the next two hours"'"

For The Europeans, she needed sixteen men and sixteen women for a quadrille and a galop. She recalls, "Since we were filming in Boston, Richard Robbins said, `Well, we'll just go to the Boston Conservatory.' Directors usually are very clear about the kind of people they want. Jim [Ivory] didn't want anyone who would stick out, no matter how well they danced. They had to look like New Englanders. So we went to a class and started pointing: you, you, you."

Whenever possible, Aldrich likes to have a hand in casting. "For the 1950s rock-and-roll scene that was cut from Remains of the Day," she says, "we were filming in Weston-super-Mare, a wonderful old seaside resort near Bristol. The casting director had gone on ahead to sign up dancers. Since it was a rock-and-roll scene, obviously I wanted teenagers. The first group of ten young women came in, and they were fine. Then I noticed that the back of the hall was filling up with people I assumed were their parents, coming to pick them up. Lo and behold, I discovered that this was the second group. So we went to a local dancing school and picked out some younger people. Since we needed bodies to fill the huge space, we put the older ones in back."

Scorsese's Age of Innocence was a different experience altogether. Since it was a union film, Aldrich only received credit as a consultant; all of her previous jobs had been on nonunion productions, and these didn't count toward union membership. (Sometimes, she notes, nonunion choreographers take second- or third-assistant-director credits.) Moreover, the extras, including the dancers in the ballroom scene, had to be members of the Screen Actors Guild. So, instead of grabbing people off the streets, the producers sent out a casting call. Because she wanted dancers who didn't look like dancers, Aldrich asked for actors with ballroom experience. "I try to stay away from dancers," she explains. "Their body stance isn't natural; they don't look like real people. Even if it takes longer to teach nondancers the steps, I prefer taking the time, because in the end the effect is more appropriate. And they're so enthusiastic."