With A Career That Has Spanned Seven Decades, Performing Powerhouse Chita Rivera Has An Entire Award Show Named After Her

“”They let me host so it’s gonna be a wild night,” said Jared Grimes at the Chita Rivera Awards from the stage at NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. But the night wasn’t just wild, it was inspired, even astonishing. Named for the great performer Chita Rivera, the awards honors dancers and choreography on Broadway, Off Broadway, and in film.

The evening began with Grimes tap dancing solo to a pull-out-all-the-stops breathtaking rendition of the song “Who Taught Her Everything She Knows,” which he sings in Funny Girl on Broadway and was nominated for a Tony for his performance.

From downstage, as close as he could be to the audience to really feel their energy, Grimes’ “tap exploration” began. He created a virtual orchestra of dazzling tap sounds. “Through improvising and connecting with everyone I literally surrendered myself to my wildest ideas in the craft where who knows what can happen,” said Grimes after.

“I compare it to a roller coaster where I put the audience in their seats, fasten their seat belts and take them on unexpected twist and turns,” he added. “The journey is a collaboration with the audience and they are a part of the infinite direction we are headed. In my mind, my idols Sammy Davis Jr and Gregory Hines were smiling down on me. And it was a complete honor to even be in the building with such amazing artists.”

And what a night of collaboration it was. Produced by Joe Lanteri, founder and executive director of the New York City Dance Alliance Foundation Inc., in conjunction with Patricia Watt, the event raised funds for The New York City Dance Alliance Foundation College Scholarship Program. Since its inception, the organization has awarded $4 million dollars to more than 400 dancers to help them attend the most prestigious college dance programs in the country. In fact, it was Lanteri who said to Grimes “Jared just be you,” before he performed his solo. “He let me fly,” said Grimes.

The evening brought together some of the world’s finest dancers and choreographers. The Chita Rivera Awards are unique because they celebrate and recognize ensemble members, who are the backbone of and play key roles in shows. At this years ceremony, two Broadway dance ensembles Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ and New York, New York were Awarded Outstanding Ensemble in a Broadway Show.

“When I was a Broadway dancer we wanted to know that what we were doing was important,” says Andy Blankenbuehler, the prolific choreographer and director who choreographed Hamilton, In the Heights and was celebrated at the awards for outstanding choreography for his show, Only Gold. (He started his career as an ensemble member in Broadway shows). “The Chita Rivera Awards do that. They recognize our contribution at dancers, but more important our contribution as ensemble members and not stars.” As Blankenbuehler describes them the dance ensemble is like a foundation of a huge building. “And everything is stacked on top of us,” he says.

Tony nominee Tony Yazbeck says the Chita Rivera Awards, which recognizes great talents past present and future, are vital to give dancers a voice which they don’t often get like actors or singers do. “People don’t always recognize dance as language. But what we do is language,” says Yazbeck who did some riveting hoofing playing Cary Grant in Flying Over Sunset. “We tell a story in another dimension. In another way. We want to affect the audience and have them feel great things. And this night is to celebrate us as storytellers.”

At this year’s Chita Rivera Awards, John Kander received the Lifetime Achievement Award, BroadwayHD, founded by Bonnie Comley and Stewart F. Lane, received the Ambassadors For The Arts Award, and Jeffrey L. Page were given the Douglas and Ethel Watt Critics’ Choice Award. And for the first time the Outstanding Dancer in a Broadway Show category was gender-free.

All throughout the show, the name that came up over and over again was Chita Rivera, the namesake of the awards. Nominated for ten Tonys, Rivera is one of the most nominated performers in Tony history. A veteran of 18 Broadway shows, she originated the role of Anita in West Side Story, Velma Kelly in Chicago and worked with Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse.

A three-time Tony winner, Rivera was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and is a Kennedy Center honoree. And this year, at 90, she released her autobiography Chita: A Memoir.

“You feel like you know her when she dances and performs. She’s a real true Broadway broad. I think, she is who I want to be,” said Robyn Hurder who won Outstanding Dancer in a Broadway Show (along with Mattie Love for Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ and Jess LeProtto for A Beautiful Noise) for her performance in A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical. “Chita is so ferocious, so fierce, so consistent and look at her. She’s still doing it. She is the ultimate icon for dancers in musical theater.”

Also, dancers and choreographers look to Rivera as one of the finest examples of an unstoppable artists. “There’s this stereotype that dance careers are short. But Chita Rivera proves that you can have a long career in dance and that’s so inspiring,” says choreographer Jennifer Webber who was nominated for two Best Choreography Tony Awards this season for & Juliet and KPOP. “When you are young and tell people you want to be a dancer they think you’re going to be done when you’re 30. But Chita Rivera has been killing it for decades.”

Rivera herself got a standing ovation when she gave the Lifetime Achievement Award to her dear friend and collaborator John Kander. Working with the late lyricist Fred Ebb the dynamic songwriting duo wrote the scores for 16 musicals, including Cabaret, The Visit, Kiss Of the Spider Woman, Chicago, The Rink, Zorba and Flora the Red Menace. ”He’s responsible for my entire career,” said Rivera who appeared in many of their shows.

Just last month, at 96-years old, John Kander, debuted his latest Broadway musical New York, New York, which was nominated for 9 nominations. What keeps him inspired? “I’ve decided in my old age it’s very important not to die before you’re dead,” said Kander who will receive a 2023 Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theater. “Oh you should write that down,” advised Rivera.

Kander added that the key thing is to keep toiling away. “Freddy and I wrote a lot of really terrible songs, but we just wrote,” said the man who composed songs like “All That Jazz,” “Maybe This Time,” “A Quiet Thing,” “Cabaret” and on and on and on.

And what is it like for Rivera to have an entire awards show named after her? “I didn’t believe it for a while, but I grew into it,” she said. “I must have done something right for me to be chosen.”