Chita Rivera

Stuart Sweeney · **Posted:** Sat Dec 07, 2002 3:33 am

Chita Rivera
By Ann Geracimos for THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Triple threat Chita Rivera — the dancer-singer-actress forever linked with the role of Anita in the original "West Side Story" — is one Washingtonian who never looks back.

Not for her is a reliance on past achievements as a star in many of Broadway's most successful musical theater productions. She keeps "the real world" separate from the world of showbiz that she has inhabited since she was a teenager.

"I don't wear at home the parts I do on stage," Miss Rivera says in a telephone interview from her four-acre retreat in Westchester County, N.Y.

The two-time Tony winner, who is among the five outstanding performing artists being celebrated in this weekend's Kennedy Center Honors ceremonies, was born in Washington on Jan. 23, 1933, and received her first dance training at the Jones-Haywood School of Ballet in the District's Northwest.

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Francis Timlin · **Posted:** Fri Mar 02, 2007 10:53 am

Chita Rivera is performing "A Dancer's Life" at Seattle's Paramount Theatre, February 28 through March 4, 2007. Joe Adcock reviews the performance in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Seattle P-I

Misha Berson in the Seattle Times:

Seattle Times

ncgnet · **Joined:** Sun Oct 27, 2002 12:01 am **Posts:** 1845

From Terry Byrne in the Boston Globe:

Quote:

A life of dancing with the stars
A new show chronicles Chita Rivera’s career onstage

When a producer asked Chita Rivera to do a show about her life, she said, “No thanks.”
....
But in 2002, Rivera won a Kennedy Center honor, and when, from her seat of honor, she saw young performers re-creating her roles in “West Side Story” and “Chicago,” she decided she did have something to say about the dancer’s experience.

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ncgnet · **Joined:** Sun Oct 27, 2002 12:01 am **Posts:** 1845

From Lauren Beckham Falcone in the Boston Herald:

Quote:

Dancing with the star: Chita Rivera gets her kicks onstage
....
“It’s [ “Dancing With the Stars” ] nuts, all of that fascination with celebrities who can’t dance,” [Chita Rivera] said from Florida. “Everything is a competition, and that is not what art is about. It’s about training the mind and the body and starting when you are young. You have to take it seriously. These days, everyone wants to be on television, not in the classroom learning the basics. And that’s the only way you’re going to have longevity.”

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ncgnet · **Joined:** Sun Oct 27, 2002 12:01 am **Posts:** 1845

Reviews from the Boston papers.

From Lauren Beckham Falcone in the Boston Herald:

Quote:

Agile Chita defies the years in moving show
.... it’s obvious the moment [Chita] Rivera takes the stage she is not only an exuberant, Tony Award-winning actress, dancer and singer; she’s a legend. And at 74, she’s one of the most agile and intriguing hoofers in front of the footlights.
But “The Dancer’s Life” isn’t a self-congratulatory “E! True Hollywood Story” set to music. It’s a love letter from Rivera to the teachers in her life - from her family to her choreographers to her co-stars.

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And from Sandy MacDonald in the Boston Globe:

Quote:

Rivera tells her story with charisma
By conservative estimate, probably 90 percent of the audience at last night’s opening of “Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life” at the Colonial Theatre came prepared to be wowed, having witnessed the double Tony Award-winner’s onstage charisma before. She has given us 55 years, after all, in which to catch her act.

As for the 10 percent of us a few decades behind in picking up the banner? Converts all -- again, by conservative estimate.

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