When I think of Ann Reinking, I see legs. Legs in shiny black stockings. Legs with heels. Legs stretching effortlessly until 6 p.m. They weren’t the only ones who made her dance so resplendently, but they were the anchor of audacity. Aside from their shape, they had a strength that rooted their body, giving the pelvic isolations a kind of silky groove and their precision a natural, mocking sensuality. Even lying on a bed, her legs could tell a story.
Mrs. Reinking, who died asleep at age 71 while visiting family in Seattle over the weekend, was one of Bob Fosse’s most important dancers and, for a time, his mistress. This bed comes into play in a non-dancing scene from Fosse’s semi-autobiographical film “All That Jazz,” in which Ms. Reinking plays a version of herself. Right now, all he wants is for Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider, in the Fosse-based role) to stop sleeping.
The dialogue is fun, but her legs steal the scene from her: leaning back, she covers them, naked, through the mattress. Her power is enhanced by her piercing blue eyes and her long, shiny dark hair, separated in the middle to the perfection of the 70s. (Is there anything more fun than a dancer from the 70s?) But really, she reduces to these legs.
Mrs. Reinking made his career on Broadway and especially in the play of Fosse, for whom he was a muse. She met Fosse officially at an audition for “Pippin,” but she was already an admirer of his work. In an interview, talking about watching “Chicago,” he said, “I was stunned. It went beyond interest. I don’t know why it caught my eye. And it was a quiet roar when they finished.” .
In 1977, two years before “All That Jazz” was released, Mrs. Reinking, 26, created a roar in “Chicago” when she replaced Gwen Verdon, Fosse’s wife, who starred in many of her major Broadway shows, including “Damn Yankees” and “Sweet Charity”: as the Roxie Hart choir, a role she repeated in 1996 when she performed the show in the style of Fosse for an Encores. presentation at the City Center.
During the 1990s, Ms. Reinking became the custodian of the Fosse: The Encores legacy! the renaissance led to a Broadway production, for which he received a Tony for best choreography. “The hope is that by rediscovering‘ Chicago, ’the audience will rediscover what theater was,” Ms. Reinking in a 1996 interview with The Times. “It was sophisticated, complicated, for adults.” (At the time of the coronavirus closure, “Chicago” was still working.) In 1998 he conceived, with Richard Maltby Jr. and Chet Walker, “Fosse,” a magazine he played on Broadway from 1999 to 2001.
Although she was widely recognized for her work in musical theater, Ms. Reinking (known as Annie, at least in her “Dancin ‘” days) began in ballet. (Before releasing the 1996 version of “Chicago,” he said his choreographic approach was more ballet than Fosse’s.) When he came to New York when he was young, he had a scholarship with the Joffrey Ballet. On the west coast — he is from Seattle — he had studied with the San Francisco Ballet and learned ballets from George Balanchine.
This is not so much talked about when it comes to Mrs. Reinking’s career, but it can be seen in her dance: there is an ingrained elegance, an internal organization of the body that is intuited even when it is not. is pronounced. One of the reasons Margaret Qualley, who brought Mrs. Reinking to the brilliant life of the TV series “Fosse / Verdon,” was so good is that she shares that elegance; she was also a ballet dancer.
Mrs. Reinking may have disappeared, but her dance is still alive: lush, full-bodied, sumptuous. And not everything is Fosse. I had forgotten about “Annie,” but in that 1982 movie, Mrs. Reinking plays Grace Farrell, the secretary of billionaire Oliver Warbucks, who encourages her to adopt Annie. In the issue “We Got Annie”, Mrs. Reinking dances a storm.
Wearing a silky yellow dress, which wraps around her legs like a couple, she begins with a playful, cheerful walk, pausing each time to get a shoulder or a swirl. She kicks and dries like a rag doll. Running down a hallway, he jumps on a chair, plays the harp with a pair of fingertips, and moves forward, circling the space as if gliding over the wind: blurry, bright but indelibly articulated.
How reckless! What an abandonment! In her exuberance, it seems that Mrs. Reinking is showing us the sound of laughter. It’s over too soon, but it’s said appropriately: At least in those couple of minutes we also have our Annie.