Wild moves Taming the choreography of The Lion King BY BILL RODRIGUEZ

Back in 1998 when it swept up six Tony Awards, The Lion King made as big a splash in the theater world as in cinemas. Tapped by Disney to bring its animation hit to life onstage was Julie Taymor, an avant-garde director whose sensibilities were a world away from the cutesy dancing crockery of Beauty and the Beast.

Eight years later, the show is still packing ’em in on Broadway, with two companies touring the country. The Lion King, with songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, will be at the Providence Performing Arts Center October 20-December 4.

Taymor created a powerful visual and theatrical spectacle, striking mythic chords left untouched in the original work. The story is a quest, after all, with a dark night of the soul that Joseph Campbell would have recognized. Our little hero, the lion cub Simba, is a son seeking to redeem himself after being responsible for the death of his father, Mufasa, and others in the animal kingdom he is heir to lead.

As director, costume, and production designer, Taymor created elaborate animal headdresses and limb extensions for the actors and dancers, plus life-size bunraku puppets. Obviously, her choice for choreographer would be crucial to her vision. Fortunately, she chose Garth Fagan.

The Jamaica-raised head of the Garth Fagan Dance Company equals Taymor as an off-the-beaten-Broadway-track choice. He has a reputation for merging balletic and modern movements with visual excitement — big gestures, lots of leaps, stillness/excitement contrasts — and for choreographic integrity that would keep his contribution, and Taymor’s production design, from looking like Las Vegas. The winner of the choreography Tony for Lion King has also won NEA and Guggenheim fellowships and a SUNY professorship.

Fagan spoke recently by phone from his dance studio.

You choreographed a musical before: Queenie Pie, the "street opera" with Duke Ellington music. Without that experience, would Lion King have been significantly different?

Not significantly different, but different. With my dance company I call all the shots, you know. I decide what the music is, how much space they’re going to use, how many dancers there are going to be. But with a musical, you have to use some people who can sing fabulously but really are not great dancers — or even movers, forget dancers. But because they sing so well or they act so well, you have to use them and you have to make that work. That was a great experience, in getting me to understand the bigger picture of a show and how you have to move the story along.

What was the most difficult choreographic challenge with The Lion King?

The most difficult thing was to find movement that would allow the dancers to show off their talents and their expertise and still give life, bring Julie Taymor’s puppets and costumes to life. That was real difficult. First of all, I had to get the dancers confident, because dancers are accustomed to performing in form-fitting clothing; and then they see these gazelles, where they have to wear a gazelle on each arm and one on the head and they immediately freeze and say, "Oh, I can do that. That’s going to be too heavy. That’s going to be injurious." But what they didn’t know is that Michael Curry, the genius who created Julie’s puppets, had all kinds of space-age materials that he used, where it would look like it had the proper bulk but it really wasn’t heavy. And he understands movement, too — so you didn’t have to hit him over the head.

Was there a scene that was a particularly exciting opportunity for you to choreograph?

The stampede of the wildebeests was the most difficult one, to have human beings bring that to life in three dimensions, on a theater stage, in a show that they had to do eight times a week. You can’t wear them out! And if the stampede doesn’t have power, then it has failed — because as you recall in the movie, it was what killed Mufasa and everybody else.

I had to resort to the good old African tradition of using rhythm. Because rhythm can give you power and can get the audience involved but is still not as strenuous. No, the stampede is strenuous, there’s no way around it, because the men are carrying wildebeest shields that are about six feet tall, and the women have wildebeests at their arms and heads.