In summer 1977, with the development of his film All That Jazz on hold, Fosse decided to eschew collaborators and create a new musical without a story or script, constructed entirely from pre-existing songs, using his choreography as the "words".

Fosse witnessed Michael Bennett's tremendous success with the dance-focused musical A Chorus Line, but observed that it actually featured very little dancing in proportion to its talking and singing.

"[3][4] In a contemporaneous interview, Fosse told the Bulletin: "With a heart attack behind me, I just didn't feel I could spend time on a book musical ... that kind of show takes about three years to do.

He didn't call, eventually devising choreography for the entire show, except for the finale, "Yankee Doodle Disco", which was choreographed by cast member Christopher Chadman.

[4] That month, Variety reported that Fosse's all new dance revue would be called Dancers– the title eventually changed to Dancin', with the subtitle "A New Musical Entertainment".

[5] Three months of rehearsal (instead of the usual eight weeks) began at the end of 1977: on the first day, Fosse told the assembled cast: "This is a show about dancing.

While the show was out of town in Boston, Jacobs objected to the old-fashioned, literal minded Broadway-style ballet "Big City Mime", which depicted a tourist in Time Square coming in contact with prostitutes, massage parlors, and dance halls.

Dancin' was a milestone musical for dancers, both artistically and financially; for the first time ever, the entire company of a Broadway show was given principal contracts under Equity, which meant higher salaries.

[15] The new staging played a pre-Broadway try-out run at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre in the summer of 2022, and featured new material, including songs from Fosse's final Broadway musical Big Deal (1986) and restoration of the "Big City Mime" sequence that had been cut from the original production out of town in Boston.

[16] Opening Recollections of an Old Dancer The Dream Barre Percussion Dancin' Man Three In One Joint Endeavor A Manic Depressive's Lament Fourteen Feet Benny's Number The Female Star Spot America Improvisation

He also mentions several other dances, such as "Dancin' Man", with the entire cast dressed in "ice-cream" suits and lavender shirts; and "Fourteen Feet", where the shoes are nailed to the floor, and the dancers proceed to move within those confines.

[17] Clive Barnes, newly moved to the New York Post, told Fosse that he thought the show was "tremendous" and "fantastic".