Much like myself, Marc Kimelman grew up a listening to Phish in his hometown of Toronto. After attending university for psychology and business Marc decided to move to New York to pursue his dreams of working in the Theatre. Marc has worked with artists such as Neil Young, Shakka Kahn, Katie Perry and, most recently, he was picked as the associate choreographer for Phish’s NYE “Meatstick” gag. Yesterday, Marc took time out of his busy schedule to answer some questions about how the idea for the gag started, the planning and rehearsal process, and what it’s like to be given the opportunity to work with the group.
How did you get involved with the band and when did they first approach you about working with them on the NYE gag?
About a month ago I got a call from a choreographer friend of mine who I’d met two years ago at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. I hadn’t heard from her in about a year and a half and randomly I get an e-mail asking if I wanted to work with her on a gig, but I wasn’t allowed to know what it was until I signed a confidentiality agreement because they wanted to keep everything hush-hush. I really wanted to work with her so I said yes to whatever it was. And then the producers called me and had me go to their office and signed all of these confidentiality waivers. Then I flipped to the next page where it said “Phish New Years Eve Madison Square Garden,” which I was trying to get a ticket for anyway. So it was pretty crazy.
Then we started working right away. I didn’t meet the band until a week before the show, we had worked with the dancers and just spoken to the band, but I hadn’t met them personally yet. They came in a week before and checked out what we had done, and we were off to the right start. Then we started seeing Trey every day and collaborating with him on the project.
Were you a fan when you first started working on the project? You mentioned you were already trying to score tickets. Were you familiar with the band’s NYE tradition?
Yeah, I had grown up on Phish and saw a bunch of shows in my high school and university days. I’m from Toronto and all my friends were big into Phish. I’ve probably seen a handful of show. I’m not a huge Phish fan but I definitely appreciate them. I’ve never been to a New Year’s show, and I live in New York now so I was trying to make it happen this year. Obviously I know what they do on New Year’s, and it’s the same production company that worked on their gig last year when they shot Fishman out of a cannonball. So yeah, it was just really exciting to not only being on a Phish show, but a New Year’s show.
What was the timeline like with the rehearsals and preparation? When did you first start working on it and how long did it take to come together?
It was between just me and the choreographer for a couple weeks in the studio just trying to figure out what the movement style should be. Obviously we didn’t want it to be so off the wall that no one was feeling it in the crowd. It had to go with the heavy groove that Phish gives us. It was tricky.
The first stuff that we came up with was just definitely wrong and then slowly but surely we got it right. And once we got it right, which took about a week and a half or two weeks, we cast the dancers. We knew we wanted it to feel like the stage was covered with dancers. We wanted it to look like there were 200 dancers onstage, but we really only had room for about 50. So once we broke it down to how many Rabbis we wanted, and how many mariachis we wanted and all that, then we started casting. And first I reached out to my friends, which was cool to be able to hire them for a Phish gig and be able to pay them. We got the dancers in just a week before the gig. The gig was on Friday and we rehearsed with them on Tuesday and Wednesday. We had our stuff really tight so when they came in on Tuesday we were ready to roll. Then the next day the band came in to see what we had done and they were just blown away. I’ve never seen people laugh so hard for so long. We thought they would come in and just watch it and leave but they hung out for almost two hours. They just wanted to see it time and time again. Then they called their wives to come and see it and they brought all their kids to come see it…they were just so stoked by what we had done. They were really excited.
Where did the idea for the whole dance routine come from and how much creative control were you allowed?
The idea originally came through Trey and the production company I work with called David Gallo Designs. David and Trey have a long history together and the idea came through them brainstorming. They knew they wanted it to be “Meatstick,” they knew they wanted to bring back the hotdog and take it out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which was tricky. As soon as they took it out there were Phish fans who had noticed that and had started to rumor stuff on the web. So it was hard to keep things confidential. But I think we definitely pulled it off. So the idea originally came from Trey and David. [David] knows Trey the best so any time we had an idea, we would run it by him and he would either say yes or no to that. So we were definitely able to come up with ideas, but we allowed him the right to shut us down because he knows the band the best.
That’s interesting because Trey is actually working on a musical of his own right now. Is there any connection?
Yeah, I don’t know much about it but yeah I heard he’s doing that with this lyricist Amanda Green and I know our music arranger has some part in it as well. His music definitely lends itself to the stage and just seeing what we were able to do with five-part harmonies and stuff…I think it probably just motivated him more to put his stuff on the stage because it’s so theatrical.
Were you involved in the arrangements for the singers as well or were you limited to just the dance choreography?
We had a music arranger as well. He’s worked on In the Heights, West Side Story...he’s a conductor on Broadway. Everyone who worked on it is part of the Broadway world. And he took the song and just rolled with it. He wrote out all these beautiful melodies and changed it up and he was watching what we were doing—the choreography department –and he was inspired by us and we were inspired by him to create this number that would just kind of blend together nicely.
I was really only part of the choreography department, I was the associate choreographer—the main choreographer’s name was Lisa Shriver—but all the meetings had all of us together to make sure we were all on the same page all the time. It was a tricky thing to pull off with timing it perfectly so that we knew exactly when “the meatstick” would arrive and we knew exactly when the countdown would be. It was confusing at first but I think we got it together and it went off really well.
What was it like finally getting to meet the guys from Phish? What were they like to work with and what did the experience mean for you?
It was awesome. Some of the people you work with are just ego-maniacs and you never know what you’re going to get when you’re working with celebrities. But these guys couldn’t have been more gracious and I think you get that from how respectful they are with their fans and how much love they create every time they play a show. So I wasn’t surprised I was just happy to see that they were as authentic in real life and up close and personal.
Mike Gordon came to our dancer’s dressing room to thank us again and the guys just couldn’t have been nicer. They really took the time to talk to us and just really appreciated what we had done. Trey said that he had never seen anything like this in 27 years. I think they were just really respectful for the work that we had put in to create this epic event for their fans. So they were nothing but amazing. It was just unreal. I got a picture with Trey, and usually when you get pictures with celebrities they don’t look happy to be there, but he’s just so happy to have fans who like him and are picking up on his vibes. All four of them were just amazing.
Have you gotten a chance to watch the official video of the New Year’s “Meatstick” gag?
Yeah, I kind of don’t stop watching it. It’s amazing to have such a well-done video because you want to relive the moment and I’m able to just watch it. I thought they did an amazing job with the video and it’s really cool that they archive everything. I mean, there are cameras all over the place which is great. They really just want to reel this stuff themselves and then put things out on DVD. And as soon as we did the dress rehearsal with the band it was Mike’s idea to have his own camera in “the meatstick,” which was cool to get a birds-eye view. So yeah, I’ve been watching the video and showing people and people are just freaking out over it, which is great. My buddy called me yesterday—he’s been to 95 shows—and this is the one show he’ll never forget. It was just cool to be able to provide that for fans, or even just be a part of it.
And then I had an all-access Phish pass that night, which was just unbelievable. I was able to watch throughout the show from side-stage and the show was just so tight. They sound amazing. And I was able to go to all of the soundchecks that week, and watching how they work and keep reworking songs—they never stop making things better. I remember at soundcheck on the 30th, Trey changed a lyric to [“Pigtail”] because he had just listened to a tape from a previous show and they were still working hard on making everything better and better.
Did you have a personal favorite moment or a favorite song or jam from the New Year’s show, aside from the obvious “Meatstick” segment?
Well, for some reason I like a lot of their ballads and I think “Waste” from Billy Breathes —I don’t know maybe when Billy Breathes came out that was just perfect timing for me. Walking back into the arena after the [performance] “Waste” was playing and I had just an incredible moment by myself during that. [Laughs]. So I think that was another highlight of the night for me. I was right on the side of the stage, right beside Fishman, and it was just really cool. There’s nothing like those fans.
What’s your personal background in choreography and what are some of the other projects you are working on?
I was born and raised in Toronto, and was dancing since I was 9. I went to university for psychology and business, but I always knew that if I could, I would make a career out of this. So I’ve been choreographing for Degrassi: The Next Generation and a couple other shows for CTV; I worked with Neil Young and Shaka Kahn; I worked with Katy Perry. So it’s been a good run so far, already.
These arena gigs are really exciting. My heart is in theatre—that’s what I love to do the most. I spent two years at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival recently, but I was just kind of ready to move somewhere where there was a bigger pond. I was really happy in Toronto but nothing does it for me like New York. I’ve only been in the city about six months but I’ve choreographed two workshops for new musicals and then this Phish gig came around and it just kind of blew my mind. I’ve always dreamed about Madison Square Garden and I’ve never seen a show there and then I was onstage with Phish. So it’s been a pretty wild couple of months, for sure.
Right now I’m working on pre-production for a Stratford Shakespeare Festival play called Jesus Christ Superstar. There are two choreographers on it, Lisa Shriver again from New York and Bradley Rapier from LA, so I’m helping them out with pre-production this week. I’m always auditioning and just choreographing on the fly. So, things just seem to come up, which is great.
