How would you feel selling your body to make a living each day? That was the question choreographer Andrew Hallsworth asked dancers when creating the number Hey Big Spender from hit musical Sweet Charity.
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The show tells the story of Charity Hope Valentine, a dance hall hostess with a hope of finding love.
She has an optimistic approach to life and despite dancing with different men each day to make a living she dreams that a proper gentleman will take her away and end her dance hall days.
With no education or skills Charity and her co-workers are forced to sell their bodies throughout dancing in order to make money and survive.
Sweet Charity originally debuted on Broadway in 1966, based on Federico Fellini's movie Nights of Cabiria and directed and choreographed by renowned Bob Fosse.
Director of the current production Dean Bryant said when re-creating the musical almost 50 years later producers built on what Fosse had previously created but wanted to provide the audience with something new.
"We just started with Bob Fosse's ideas as he was the creator of the musical, it was his idea and he structured, directed and choreographed it, so we kind of looked more at what he took from the Fellini movie to influence what we created," Mr Bryant said.
"Even though the Bob Fosse choreography is unbelievable, you can see it on YouTube within two seconds, so why would anyone want to come to the theatre so see the same thing? So for these audiences I wanted to bring them something new."
Choreographer of the revived production Andrew Hallsworth worked from the characters' personalities rather than the dance moves when he recreated the numbers.
"I spoke to the girls about how their bodies would have felt and what they would be going through if they had to dance and sell their bodies each day, and then I choreographed with this in mind," he said.
The production initially opened last year at the Hayes Theatre in Sydney and won three Helpmann awards.
The musical had great success and has now been revived to suit larger venues for its current tour.
"I didn't change much of the choreography since last year for the current tour – I just enlarged it. After winning an award for best choreography in a musical with this production last year, I didn't think it needed to be changed."
Sweet Charity will be showing at the Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre from February 11 to 22.
