Kevin and Marcel Wilson on Highlighting African Dance in Disneyland's 'Tale of The Lion King' (Exclusive)
If you plan on going to Disneyland in Anaheim, you don't want to miss their latest theater production of Tale of The Lion King. Unlike the classic story and Broadway show, Tale of The Lion King uses the cast as storytellers who narrate the story, instead of having them transform into animals or puppeteers. The story is told from Simba's point of view. The 30-minute show comes alive through bold costumes, big choreography, a new twist on the classic songs through original arrangements, and even the hair and makeup.
The most impressive feature is the all-new choreography from veterans Kevin and Marcel Wilson, also known as The Wilson Brothers. In addition to working on major Broadway productions, the brothers have quite an impressive background of trained dance in nearly every style mixed with their experience working with pop artists like Britney Spears and Janet Jackson. For Tale of The Lion King, they brilliantly merge traditional African dance genres with hip-hop and street styles, along with other traditional dance genres that will surely have audience members dancing along throughout the production.
PopCulture.com had the pleasure of attending an exclusive in-person preview of Tale of The Lion King as part of Disneyland's Celebrate Soulfully series kickoff to June's Black Music Month. The goal of the series, which debuted in February for Black History Month, is to bring rich experiences that put a spotlight on Black culture. There is no better addition than Tale of The Lion King with its setting and elements being centered around the African experience.
We spoke with The Wilson Brothers about their experience choreographing the show. For starters, it was important for them to merge their vast dance experience with traditional African elements to truly embody the story. Nearly every dance genre is included, with jazz, modern, and liturgical. But it's clear the true basis is that of African dance with a more modernized hip-hop dance infusion.
"Kevin and I come from such a versatile background in dance and we love all different styles of dance. So we definitely wanted to incorporate that in Tale of The Lion King. We had the hip-hop, the jazz, the contemporary, all of these styles of dance helping to further the story as people watch the show," Marcel told us, noting that it was also imperative to bring what they learned from the pop-dance world outside of their Broadway and theater experience to make it well-rounded. "We tried to, in the beginning, we really tried to make it celebratory and rejoicing. So that's why wanted to bring in a lot of the West African-type style choreography. But then, it was really great from choreographing songs like "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" and really bringing forth joyous dancing like stepping and krumping and telling the story within the song and dance," he added.
Kevin's favorite part was the musicality of the production with the drums and live instruments and the original musical arrangements of the classic songs gave them even more freedom with what they could do dance-wise. "The fact that you understood and saw the jazz dance can be it's influenced by so many different things with this specifically because of the musicality, because of our training," he explained. "We even incorporate tap dance. You didn't see necessarily tap in there with actual tap shoes per se, but what we use is the benefit of tap dance was the musicality, the rhythm, and the timing that was offered."
Tale of The Lion King is now live at Disneyland in Anaheim, California at Fantasyland Theater with four live shows a day Thursday through Monday. Check out the official showtimes on the website or Disneyland app.