Rock The Ballet’s promised fusion of rock music and dance, particularly traditional ballet, no doubted excited young (teenage) dancers sufficiently to nag parents and grandparents to take them along, as well as appeasing their desires for their own class experiences to lighten up a bit.
Rock The Ballet clearly delivered on the promise but whether it did much more than satisfy audiences for two hours and the car trip home is rather more problematical.
The first half (Act 1 – Beautiful Day) was somewhat ho-hum. After an energising start to music from the Black Eyed Peas, the next 45 mins flat lined in group displays with the dancers dressed rather like the Wiggles toned down to the extent they didn’t stir some innate desire to lick them. The exception was a delightful parody of classic opera in the form of dancing with blow up dolls to Maria Callas blasting out a ditty from Carmen on volume notch 11.
The second half (Act 2 – Rock You) was fortunately a much better affair as more solo efforts to shorter song excerpts morphed into the sexy showmanship promised by the billboards. Most successful were the dancing to Queen (We Will Rock You particularly) and Michael Jackson numbers. The impact of the lighting also went up a notch or two as well as the interest generated in the back drops (Bicycle Race, again from Queen, of note.)
James Boyd was the night’s principal dancer and he excelled with a prowess and physique to capture the attention of all ages attending. Amongst the Bad Boys, Alexei Geronimo and Doug Baum shone through.
There is no doubt Rock The Ballet is a very slick commercial production, laced with mostly fine dancers that can appeal to audiences of all ages, which it needs to at $100 a ticket. But one with even a passing interest in dance in all its forms will judge it somewhat shy for lasting impact of other productions that have come through town in recent weeks – Circa and the Leigh Warren Dancers to name just two.
Read the write up of our interview with Rock The Ballet’s founder, Rasta Thomas by clicking Here
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