How 'Redwood' reaches new heights on Broadway with aerial dance

Melecio Estrella and his company BANDALOOP created the musical's vertical choreography, a unique art form that combines techniques of dance and climbing.

The characters of the new Broadway musical Redwood spend a lot of time with their heads in the clouds. Redwood takes place in a California forest, where grieving mother Jesse (Tony Award winner Idina Menzel) arrives from New York to climb, literally, toward a fresh start. With the help of two environmental scholars who show her the ropes, the massive redwood trees become her escape from the unforgiving world below.

Video projections by Hana S. Kim do the work of taking audiences up into the treetops alongside the characters. But the actors also strap into harnesses and actually climb — and even dance on — the centerpiece of Jason Ardizzone-West's set, a 37-foot panel constructed to resemble a redwood trunk. The aerial action is made possible by Melecio Estrella and his company BANDALOOP, credited as the show's "vertical choreographers."

"It conjures this universal dream of human flight," Estrella explained. "We've all been fascinated with these characters like Superman and Spider-Man and what it means to have access to vertical space in a way that feels freeing."

Vertical choreography combines techniques of dance and rock climbing, enabling performers to enact routines in midair with vertical surfaces as their dance "floor." Founded in 1991 in Oakland, BANDALOOP is a pioneering organization in the genre, having presented site-specific performances in over 350 cities worldwide.

Under Estrella's artistic direction, BANDALOOP has worked everywhere from mountainsides to national parks to skyscrapers to plenty of theatres, but never on Broadway until Redwood.

"Our company honors nature as part of our mission, but also, we're in California," Estrella said. "I grew up in redwoods, and there was a real personal and spiritual connection to the content of the show. It was a match made in heaven."

Preparing for liftoff

Preparing the actors for aerial performance began with basic training in BANDALOOP's California headquarters. Khaila Wilcoxon, who does much of the show's climbing as the no-nonsense environmentalist Becca, came to Redwood with training in circus skills like Spanish webs and silks — as well as, ironically, a fear of heights — but not this specific type of climbing.

In three days, Wilcoxon recalled, she and her castmates did "a lot of Pilates" to build core strength, learned how to ascend and descend a wall, and practiced some movements in the air, first in and then on the side of the BANDALOOP building. Menzel scaled a 100-foot building on her first day.

"Jesse, in the show, has to go through what it means to be off the ground that high, and to feel that kind of vulnerability on rope," Estrella said. Conversely, Wilcoxon's Becca and Finn, the other environmentalist played by Michael Park, are already skilled at climbing hundreds of feet.

So Estrella's next step was taking the cast up into the actual redwoods: first a tree in BANDALOOP executive director Thomas Cavanagh's yard, and then the trees in Mill Valley, California's Muir Woods.

"It was not something I ever imagined doing in my life, and now I'm a certified climber," said Jessica Phillips, Menzel's standby. "Now that I have the skill set [...] it feels like flying."

The onstage "tree" is much shorter than an actual redwood — in the world of the show, the characters go up 200 feet as opposed to 30 — but, Estrella said, "I was really interested in giving them an experience of actual height.

"You're actually climbing on this living being, and the specific texture and smell and feeling of the park is like nothing else," he added. "Hopefully, they could bring that experience back into their work in the theatre."

Soaring on stage

Back in New York as trained climbers, the cast next learned the choreography, which Menzel described as "a more poetic, abstract version of being in the tree." Using the prop tree from Redwood's 2024 world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse, they practiced twirling and floating in the air, underscored by songwriter Kate Diaz's music.

"We learned that I loved being upside down, and so that absolutely needed to be incorporated," Wilcoxon said. "Michael and I were like, 'Can we do a backflip together?'" (She added that he has it hardest because, in a separate sequence, he also "has to climb on beat.")

The vertical movement not only allows the cast to showcase tricks they enjoy, but also deepens their characters. "Mele and [associate vertical choreographer] Damara [Ganley] really put together a beautiful piece of choreography that showcased a softer side of Becca that I was very grateful for," Wilcoxon said.

"You see her [as] this husky girl. She's ready to go at all times, and then she gets on the tree, and you see her so effortlessly doing these moves, and you're like, 'Wow, she's gentle and soft.'"

Watching the actors climb invites "a sense of transcending boundaries, expanding possibility" for both him and the audiences, Estrella said.

"Every time I get to do a new project like this, it grows the artistic scope of what BANDALOOP does," Estrella said. In turn, the vertical choreography brings Broadway to new heights.

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Photo credit: Redwood on Broadway. (Photos by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)