We are working on a few promotions that are in the pipeline. In the meantime, watch the Live Stream of the dancers who will teach a Master Class at Chelsea Piers today at 10am.

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People applauded Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon for his drunken Nixon monologue (rightfully so), but for me the moment is when Nixon knows he is stuck in a corner and realizes that he has to admit his wrongdoing. There are no words, just Nixon and Frost on stage in silence, with Nixon’s face on the TV screens with the look of horror. That sent chills up my spine. A brilliant theatrical moment.

I had the opportunity to see Billy Elliot on Sunday afternoon. To be perfectly honest,  I was never excited about this show coming to Broadway and I thought it would be just another tourist trap. I had seats in center rear mezzanine and to me seats far back can ruin a show. To my pleasant surprise, I loved it, I thought it was wonderful and although it’s  very large (the cast is the biggest I have seen in a long time for a commercial production), it feels surprising intimate in the very large Imperial Theater.

To me what made Billy Elliot good was not the music (it was fine, but nothing to write home about), but the story, dance and lighting design. I haven’t seen the movie, but I just loved the story of Billy’s struggle to find himself in a narrow-minded community. The dancing was fantastic and the lighting design was amazing. Billy Elliot had two moments that, for me, made the show go from good to extraordinary.

Both scenes occur act the end of the acts (spoiler alert!). The Act One finale is a long sequence with Billy  dancing alone while riots occur behind him. It’s a chilling moment that beats out any flying witches or crashing chandeliers. There’s no song, just Billy expressing his frustration through dance. The other moment occurs at the end of Act Two when Billy says goodbye to his best friend, Michael, who rides a bike to the spotlit center of the darkened stage. You do not see Michael’s face, he is alone, watching  his friend achieve his dream while he is left behind in a community that is crumbling. In the silence it is just Michael and in a moment Billy runs up to embrace his friend, probably for the last time.

In one of the many short pieces, a striking, strong woman came out on stage. She stood in the center of a spotlight. A sermon started from the speakers.

And she began to dance to it.

When the preacher spoke of the virtues of a good attitude, she held herself a little taller. When he was particularly preachy, she walked around the perimeter of the spotlight circle and wagged her finger at the audience.

But the dance was not limited to interpreting the content of the speech. When the words tumbled out of the speaker’s mouth in a rush, the dancer was a flash of arms, legs, and hair. And when he slowed down to emphasize a point, her flash of movement slowed down to match it.

The piece was short, but quite powerful in demonstrating the beauty in everyday language.