Dance: Ten, Looks: Three Lyrics – Chorus Line, A

Song Overview

“Dance: Ten; Looks: Three” lands like a grenade disguised as a novelty number. In A Chorus Line, Val clocks a hard truth of the audition room - talent helps, but packaging sells - and recounts how surgical “upgrades” tip her career from stalled to working. It is a comic showstopper with a serrated edge, a patter song about bodies, labor, and gatekeeping cooked up by two masters of Broadway craft. On the original Broadway cast album, Pamela Blair’s take is rakish, rhythmically exact, and - crucial for the joke - perfectly deadpan.

Review and Highlights

Quick summary

1. Comic solo for Val in A Chorus Line, introduced on the 1975 original Broadway cast album by Pamela Blair.
2. Originally titled “Tits and Ass” - the creative team later retitled it to preserve the punchline for audiences discovering the gag in real time.
3. Appears in the 1985 film adaptation, performed by Audrey Landers; revived in 2006 on Broadway with Jessica Lee Goldyn.
4. The cast album was produced for records by Goddard Lieberson and recorded at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio - a marathon, one-day session.
5. Tempo sits around the low 100s BPM with a bright patter feel; commonly published in C major or A minor depending on edition.

Key takeaways

1. The number fuses patter-song comedy with a propulsive 2-feel, letting wordplay and groove carry the laugh rather than shock value alone.
2. Val’s confession lands as both satire and survival guide, exposing how the market prizes surface metrics over craft.
3. What sticks isn’t just the hook - it is the timing. The best versions keep the orchestra crisp and the vowels short.

Creation History

The original Broadway cast recording was cut June 2, 1975 at Columbia’s legendary 30th Street Studio - the converted church with a halo for acoustics - with Goddard Lieberson producing for Columbia Masterworks. Accounts of that session describe a start-to-finish push from morning into the early hours, the kind of all-in cast album day that defined a generation of Broadway recordings. The 40th Anniversary reissue later folded in archival “work-reel” material from the show’s earliest workshop phase, including piano-and-voice sketches by Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban that illuminate how a bit like “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three” lives or dies on setup and surprise.

Why the title change? Early audiences weren’t laughing as hard as expected - the program spoiled the gag. Retitling the number “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three” solved it. Suddenly the reveal hit like it should, and the laugh line did its job. That small production tweak turned a good bit into a reliable house-wrecker. According to NME magazine-style lore keepers of Broadway, this is exactly the sort of micro-adjustment that separates a workshop chuckle from an opening-night roar.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Plot

We’re mid-audition. Val steps forward to explain how she kept missing the cut even with solid steps and a reliable center. After one cattle call, she peeks at her score: “Dance, ten. Looks, three.” Her fix is surgical - she buys what casting seems to be buying - and her bookings spike. The company is not shocked, exactly. In a room tuned to surface, the story scans as pragmatic.

Song Meaning

On its face, the song is a brash comedy about cosmetic surgery. Underneath, it is a labor story about how a worker conforms to an industry’s taste hierarchy to survive. It pokes at the ledger of commercial theater - a ledger that tallies charisma, silhouette, and type along with dance chops - and shows how performers internalize those demands. The dissonance is the point: a bouncy, rimshot-friendly groove carries a critique of the marketplace. As stated in a 2006 New Yorker piece on the revival, the number is the closest the show comes to a full-on showstopper because it compresses desire, shame, and salesmanship into one two-and-a-half-minute bit.

Annotations

“These are the 2 things that, throughout all the fashion fads, are still generally considered a woman’s most attractive assets, so Val decides to get plastic surgery done on them to make them look better.”

Yes - but the number is not just gawking. It’s mapping how a dancer reads the room. The line-lingo’s cruelty - “ten” for steps, “three” for looks - compresses a human into a casting grid. Val flips that grid to her advantage.

“Val is the same dancer who, in the earlier group song about adolescence (Gimme the Ball), had the line, ‘Made it through high school without growing tits!’ Eventually, she decided to go buy artificial ones.”

That callback is the hinge. The adolescence montage sets the seed - the body as fate - and this song shows the adult choosing edits. It is dramaturgically tidy: set up the insecurity, repay with a fix, price-tag included.

“This shows the bleak truth of show business in a comedic way. People, especially women, are expected to look conventionally attractive - and those who are considered ‘ugly’ will often get rejected, even if they have the talent.”

You can feel the sting because the music never slows to comfort you. The bright tempo keeps the laugh forward while the lyric says the quiet part out loud. It’s satire set to a click track.

“Fun fact: In previews this number was called ‘Tits and Ass’ until the writers realized the title was spoiling the joke for the audience. It was then renamed to ‘Dance Ten Looks Three.’”

This bit of lore is baked into how the song is discussed. The retitle preserves surprise. It also reframes the song as an audit rubric, which is funnier - we see the punchline coming only when Val arrives at it.

“Orchestra ... Balcony”

It’s not a random theater map. The double meaning is cheeky: orchestra level equals the lower half; balcony implies, well, the upper deck. Broadway architecture turned into a winking anatomy pun.

Genre, engine, and why it works

The piece runs on patter-song fuel - quick syllables, square barlines, rimshot accents. Drums and piano lock a bright 4, the bass walks just enough, and the horns poke like a percussion section. The vocal line toggles between brisk talk-singing and clipped melody, leaving no time for sentiment. The emotional arc is simple but sharp: mortification to market mastery. Val is not asking to be loved; she is telling you how she gets hired. That candor, snapped to tempo, is the punch.

Cultural touchpoints

“Dance: Ten; Looks: Three” is a jukebox of 1970s conversations about bodies and work - plastic surgery’s rising normalcy, women fighting to steer their own image, the gig economy of performance long before the gig economy had a name. The song’s second life in the 1985 film amplified its pop-cultural footprint; the 2006 revival refreshed it for an era fluent in makeovers and reality TV confessionals.

Key Facts

• Artist: Pamela Blair, Goddard Lieberson
• Featured: Company in surrounding scenes; solo spotlight on Val
• Composer: Marvin Hamlisch
• Lyricist: Edward Kleban
• Producer: Goddard Lieberson (original cast album)
• Release Date: October 1975
• Genre: Broadway show tune with patter-song construction
• Instruments: Pit-style rhythm section, reeds, brass, strings
• Label: Columbia Masterworks
• Mood: brazen, witty, fast-talking
• Length: about 2:50 on the 40th Anniversary edition
• Track #: 9 on A Chorus Line OBC
• Language: English
• Album: A Chorus Line (Original Broadway Cast)
• Music style: bright 4 with patter delivery and stop-time jabs
• Poetic meter: irregular, prose-leaning patter with internal rhyme

Canonical Entities & Relations

People

• Pamela Blair - originated Val on the cast album and performs “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three.”
• Goddard Lieberson - produced the original Broadway cast recording.
• Marvin Hamlisch - composed the music for the song and the score.
• Edward Kleban - wrote the lyric.
• Michael Bennett - conceived and directed the musical housing the number.
• Jessica Lee Goldyn - revived Val on Broadway in 2006, performing the song in that cast album.
• Audrey Landers - performs the number as Val in the 1985 film adaptation.

Organizations

• Columbia Masterworks - issued the original cast recording.
• The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival - originating producer of the stage musical.
• Concord Theatricals - current licensing house that also offers the Teen Edition with revised lyrics.

Works

• A Chorus Line - the musical containing the song.
• A Chorus Line - Original Broadway Cast Recording - album containing Pamela Blair’s performance.
• A Chorus Line - 40th Anniversary Celebration - remastered reissue with archival materials.
• A Chorus Line (1985 film) - screen adaptation featuring the number.

Venues/Locations

• Columbia 30th Street Studio, New York - site of the 1975 cast album session.
• Shubert Theatre, Broadway - home of the original production.

Questions and Answers

Why does the punchline require the retitle?

Because “Tits and Ass” on a program telegraphs the surprise. Rename it “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three,” and the gag arrives in the lyric rather than on the page.

Is the song celebrating cosmetic surgery or skewering it?

Neither, exactly. It records a calculus. Val measures what the market rewards and adapts. The humor sits on the friction between talent and packaging.

How does the groove serve the text?

Bright 4, patter density, and short vowels keep the energy forward. The rhythm section behaves like a comedy drummer - every set up gets a clean rimshot.

What changes in the 1985 film?

The framing is cinematic, but the bit stays intact. Audrey Landers pops the hook in a slicker studio environment; the underlying critique remains audible.

Did the show ever approve tamer lyrics?

Yes. For the licensed Teen Edition, the refrain softens to “This and That,” swapping innuendo for explicit anatomy while preserving the song’s structure.

What keys are common?

Publishers circulate it in C major and A minor, and transpositions are common in practice. The revival track clocks near 108-110 BPM, right in the patter pocket.

Is the number difficult to sing?

The range is moderate; the challenge is diction at speed. You’re selling jokes on consonants while threading clean entries over a tight band.

Why does the “orchestra and balcony” line always get a laugh?

Because it folds theater geography into body slang. The audience hears a house map and a wry anatomy chart at the same time.

What makes Pamela Blair’s original read definitive for many listeners?

Her time feel. She trusts the barline. No mugging, no drag - just crisp patter and a clear point of view that the room understands in one pass.

Awards and Chart Positions

The single itself was not serviced to radio as a stand-alone, but the parent album’s footprint is measurable.

How to Sing Dance: Ten; Looks: Three

Think rhythmic stand-up with a pit orchestra. The bit only sings if your consonants do. The band is crisp, your mic is honest, and the vowels never smear.

• Typical key: commonly licensed in C major or A minor; professional releases vary by edition.
• Tempo: roughly 108-110 BPM on modern cast albums and karaoke tracks.
• Working range: about A3 to C5 in the film-pop setting; OBC sits similarly for mezzo with mix.
• Style notes: patter-song articulation, talk-singing that snaps to the barline, and clean cue pickups.

Step-by-step

1. Tempo & click: Set a steady 108-110 BPM. Rehearse with a click so punchlines sit right on the downbeat.
2. Diction drills: Practice tongue twisters at tempo with a pencil between the teeth, then remove and sing. Prioritize plosives on rhyme pairs.
3. Breath planning: Mark breaths before each internal rhyme chain. If you run out of air, the joke flattens.
4. Placement: Keep the sound forward in mask. Bright placement reads as confidence, even when the text is outrageous.
5. Accents & rests: Treat rests like punchlines. The silence after a spicy line is where the audience laughs.
6. Mic craft: Stay close for patter, lean off for shouted tags. Avoid proximity boom on “s” and “sh.”
7. Ensemble traffic: If your production keeps ad-lib quips from others, memorize their timing. You’re playing tennis, not golf.
8. Common pitfalls: Over-belting the hook, smearing vowels, chasing the band, or winking so hard the timing dies.

Additional Info

On the 40th Anniversary remaster, you can hear how the album’s improved clarity turns the number into a clinic in rhythmic comedy - the piano’s left hand is a human stopwatch. The booklet for that edition nods to how widely known the song is by its original, unprintable title, and that little wink captures why this tune has traveled so well. Revivals keep the frame, generations bring fresh phrasing, and the joke still works because the math hasn’t really changed.

For the 1985 film, Audrey Landers offers a glossy studio read that trims some of the grit but keeps the essentials. The camera does what theater can’t - it cuts in on the “merchandise” and dares you to laugh and squirm at once. When the 2006 revival returned, Jessica Lee Goldyn’s take brought dance-athlete snap and modern diction to the bit. As stated in the 2006 New Yorker review, that revival kept the number a bona fide showstopper.

Schools and youth programs have long asked how to stage the song without losing the room. The Teen Edition solves it with a lyric swap - “This and That” - dialing down explicit language without changing the structure. The result reads as the same joke in a family-safe register.

Sources: Masterworks Broadway; The New Yorker; Playbill; Concord Theatricals; Wikipedia; CastAlbums.org; Discogs; IBDB; Spotify; Apple Music; SongBPM/Musicstax; NYPL Digital Collections; Movieclips/official studio materials.