Full cast as appearing in the last photo (left to right): Courtney Galiano, Ade Obayomi, Ashley Galvan, Kent Boyd, Kathryn McCormick, Adechike Torbert, Lauren Froderman, Russell Ferguson, Robert Roldan, Billy Boyd, Allison Holker, Jose Ruiz. Photos by C. G. Wagner
The show was loud and exciting, short on traditional ballroom, long on hip-hop and contemporary. The crowd favorites were clearly Lauren and Kent, the most recent season's number one and number two "favorite dancers." I kept my eye on adorable Robert and incredibly gifted Allison, whom I've now seen perform live three times. (See "Ooo That Kiss," below.)
My friends had treated me to dinner before the show, and it would have been thoroughly delightful if we hadn't had to go through the ritual of dissatisfaction - we were seated in the bar rather than the upstairs dining area; the garlic-free menu was limited (girlfriend's severe allergy is a handicap in happy dining); the service was slow, though to my mind quite friendly; the portion for the dish gf's hubby ordered was ridiculously small for the price, whereas mine was ridiculously large. In short, my hosts were aggravated, but I was delighted.
Then there was the issue with not knowing how to do the pay-on-your-way-out parking machines. It would help if the driver would (a) remember where he parked and (b) read the instructions.
Those were their problems, I figure. I can usually drown their bickering out. But the bummer for me was, again, listening to gf try to itemize the gay versus the non-gay dancers. What was the bloody point? Even gf's hubby couldn't get her to see why it was so offensive to bring up the dancers' sexuality. GF keeps saying she doesn't have anything against gay people, but she keeps bringing it up!
I finally called her a bigot. Not a nice thing to do in the back seat of someone else's car, but I couldn't help it. We didn't continue the conversation, except in my own mind, which is where I silently lecture the world... (until I blog about it, that is!) The next time this happens, I will just ask her to repeat the exact same conversation, but instead of saying "gay," substitute the word "Jew." She might get it then.
For the next couple of days I stewed a bit, then felt bad that I called her a bigot. It wasn't nice. Anyway, we got together just two days later for another concert at Strathmore, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's tribute to dance, where we were joined by another couple.
This time we just focused on the show, which was a little lighter on the actual dancing than we expected - only six of the 16 numbers were accompanied by dancers, ranging from classical ballet to a couple of performances by the Lombard Twins, Facunda and Martin, amazing tango-tappers dancing to Astor Piazzolla. (A total of three Piazzolla pieces were on the program, compared with two Tchaikovsky pieces; the other composers covered included Dietz and Schwartz, Khachaturian, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, and Ronan Hardiman).
This afternoon gf and I went together to see "Sabrina Fair" at Ford's Theatre, which has already received a rave review from WaPo, so I won't be redundant. The nontraditional casting (an African American Sabrina) was the twist to this production, and gf questioned whether it would work. I believe she accepted it but felt it ought to have been addressed in the script somehow. Apparently, even the playwright had suggested addressing the race issue if directors chose to cast the show this way, but it didn't happen.
The result of that ignoring the elephant in the room, to me, made the story more focused on the essential issue of class distinction (and incidentally whether money can buy your way into an elevation of class). I think a lot of other things could have been done with nontraditional casting, including making the Larrabees African American and the Fairchilds white. Or make the Larrabee brothers sisters instead, and the chauffeur's daughter a son.
Or you could even go nontraditional in the gender casting too. But it was set in the 1950s, when such a love story was even more unthinkable than cross-racial pairings.
The first comment gf had was that she thought one of the Larrabee characters was miscast. I won't say which one. She just said she thought he was too obviously gay.
Sigh. At least she stifled herself before the second act and didn't bring it up again afterwards.
Social progress still has a long way to go, ya'll.
The show ended with a glorious dance to Nat King Cole singing "LOVE," and you couldn't pry the grin off my face! What joy!
love, hosaa
dancing in my heart
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