| . | 08/13/2009
Burn the Floor
By: Eugene Paul
Dance. It seems to be the universal language. Twenty dancers, from a dozen countries have arrived in an Australian production but such dancers! When was the last time you attended a show in which individual members of the cast had won over one hundred dance awards worldwide? Like, never before, right? And when was the last time you saw twenty dance champions absolutely astonish you with their feet, their legs, their arms, their bodies, their whole beings in an explosion of dance exposition gently titled, Burn the Floor ? Why has it taken so long to bring these dazzlers to Broadway? They’ve spellbound audiences in thirty countries already around the globe; Broadway is just their latest stop. I hope they stop a long, long while.
Ballroom dance is no stranger to Broadway, of course, but since its surprising ascent into the large general consciousness via television shows which are now themselves duplicated around the world, Americans and Brits, Russians and French, Germans and Australians, Japanese and Spanish, Hungarians, Poles, Swedes, everybody cannot seem to get enough of the beauty, grace and sheer athleticism ballroom dance generates, as well as requires. There isn’t an athlete who can challenge these dancers in stamina, strength, dedication, focus combined. Enjoying the pleasure of seeing these dancers in full force performing Jive or any of the other five compulsory Latin Dances demanded in International dance competition is a wonder. It’s no wonde Ballroom dance is no stranger to Broadway, of course, but since its surprising ascent into the large general consciousness via television shows which are now themselves duplicated around the world, Americans and Brits, Russians and French, Germans and Australians, Japanese and Spanish, Hungarians, Poles, Swedes, everybody cannot seem to get enough of the beauty, grace and sheer athleticism ballroom dance generates, as well as requires. There isn’t an athlete who can challenge these dancers in stamina, strength, dedication, focus combined. Enjoying the pleasure of seeing these dancers in full force performing Jive or any of the other five compulsory Latin Dances demanded in International dance competition is a wonder. It’s no wonder that Dancesport has grown as a term of art and as a potential Olympic event. To watch a stage full of superb dancers tearing the breath out of an audience is as awe inspiring as the occasion itself. The elements of absolute partnering, absolute timing, absolute precision as well as the challenge of investing the dances with the emotions director Jason Gilkison has sought for his dance scenarios – it’s mind boggling. How did they get this wonderful? Years and years of practice, practice, practice.
Thank heavens there are five other compulsory dances in international competition: the standard dances, the waltz, the fox trot, the tango, the quick step and the Viennese Waltz, sure to enthrall you, calm you, and involve you in their easy embraces. Easy? Oh, yes, soooo easy. Ten times harder than the Latin’s dances some folks say, because it’s made to look easy, silky smooth, embracing, enveloping, enchanting, poetry in motion, flawless whereas showing immense effort is de rigueur in the Latin dances. Ten times harder? Twenty. Why you get so little of standard dances in Burn the Floor is because the stage is too small. Ballroom dancing is meant be performed at its fullest in a ballroom, particularly the standard dances. Very few stages even on Broadway can accommodate a ballroom’s worth of dancers. Granted, there are only twenty dancers, they should fit, but not these dancers. Just one couple is enough to burn the floor, especially in Latin dances which use as much space up and down as laterally. They don’t need the whole floor, they burn holes right where they are. But the dramatic, emotional, sinuous swoop of superb, magical waltzing couples sweeps the stage in four steps. Ergo: less waltz, more jive. Sorry.
You’ll see photos in your program of the entire company, including the well known guest stars Karina Smirnoff and Maksim Chmerkovsky of TV fame, who manage to keep up with the BTF company but certainly do not outshine them. They’re also introduced at the curtain by excellent singing emcee Ricky Rojas but they’re not listed in the program – I wish they were --with each of the dances they perform, which are over and over spectacular show stoppers. It is almost impossible to pick favorites they’re all so good but I did really, really enjoy Peta Murgatroyd, and Giselle Peacock, and Damian Whitewood, and Jeremy Garner, and Kevin and Nurian and Henry and Melanie and on and on… They are wonderful. Janet Hine has dressed them beautifully, best of all, so that they can MOVE, and Ray Klausen’s unobtrusive set put the terrific orchestra on stage with everybody else. Burn on, dancers, burn on.
*
. At the Longacre Theater, 220 West 48th Street, west of Broadway. Tickets:$59.50-$111.50. Tue 7 pm, Wed-Sat 8 pm, Mats: Wed,Sat 2 pm, Sun 3 pm. Take-charge.com or 212 239-6200. Discounts available.
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