student blog

Flap-Flop / Erin

Dear Iowa dance professors,

You officially have made me a dance snob.

I can’t help but critique most dance performances.  Due to my intense (but worthwhile!) choreography, production, dance theory and history classes, I’m constantly analyzing not only the performers’ capabilities, but also searching for recurring motifs within different works and watching for overarching themes throughout entire shows.  I make judgments on lighting, music choices, and costuming.  I’m usually quite pleased and inspired by the dance performances I’ve seen at Iowa.   And sometimes if there is a rock star performance, like Hubbard Street Dance Chicago or Alvin Ailey had in Hancher’s 2007-08 season, you might just make me sit in glowing rapture (sometimes with my mouth wide open), pining away to be on stage with the dancers.

Thank You, Gregory did not make me want to dust off my tap shoes in the slightest.

Generally speaking, tap dancing isn’t my strong point, but this show seriously fell short of my expectations.  The overall performance was sometimes hard to follow, with video montages interspersed with dance routines.  Even for an educated dancer like myself, it took me awhile to figure out during the first act that the dancers were mimicking famous tap dancers’ styles.  Transitions between numbers were jarring and I would have liked more distinct introductions to each era highlighted.

Dancers played multiple roles during the performance, including MCing, singing, and playing various instruments.  Sounds great right?  Gregory was a triple threat himself, so it makes sense that the dancers in his tribute would be too!  Instead most were mediocre at best at their additional roles.  It would have been better if they had hired tappers that could really groove…

There were some shining moments in the show.  Two of the male dancers did a cute rendition of classic vaudeville tap, trying to one-up each other, finally tapping with rollerskates on.  I found Joseph Webb, one of the featured dancers in the show to be extremely charismatic and probably the most talented dancer on the tour.  The male dancers were definitely stronger than the females, which is surprising in a field that is often exploding with females vying for a spot on stage (I speak from experience).  A couple of the women didn’t even look like professional dancers.  C’mon casting director, there are so many talented women dying for dance jobs.  It’s time to hold another audition.

 Gregory Hines is by far one of my favorite performers of all time.  The show just didn’t do him justice.  This was a great opportunity to educate audiences about the great tap dancers of the past, bonafide legends of dance unlike those goofballs seen on “Dancing with the Stars.”  It wasn’t a terrible performance in the least; it was just lacking in artistic direction and stellar choreography to really wow people and get them excited about this dwindling art form.

Thank You, Gregory: please take a hint from the source of your inspiration and work to be something greater.  He loved his art; you could see it any time he performed.  His deep love for tap needs to be captured in the show. It’s what Gregory would want, that I am completely sure.

(No) Thank You, Gregory / Steven

I am no dancer.  I am no singer.  I am certainly no actor.  But I am a musician, an avid fan of Broadway musicals and, if I do say so myself, a mighty fine shower singer.  This being the case, I would never pass up an opportunity to see my first ever tap dance show with live music.  Whoops…scratch the live music thing and insert one pianist, recorded music, mediocre singing, weird videos and cheesy audience interaction.

I must admit, I was a little less than enthused when I found out right before the show that the live musicians I had been promised (and seen in the promo video) were non-existent.  Being a percussionist, I understand loud things disrupting your ability to hear.  So you can see why I felt the lone piano man’s pain when I saw him leaning over and straining to hear the recorded music from a speaker.  This coupled with an ensemble of tap dancers, live singers, and an auditorium full of people make for one great big musician’s nightmare.  However, I applaud Mr. Theo Hill for keeping it together as best he could.

I’m going to keep rolling with this music thing, but on a good “note” (Bad joke, Steven).  The rhythms tap dancers create with their feet are astonishing!  I was blown away at the abilities of these performers.  However, Joseph Webb set himself apart in my eyes.  I thoroughly enjoyed every time he was on stage.  His presence was so overwhelming that I could barely take my eyes off of him, even when the entire ensemble was on stage.  This is not to say the other dancers were not great as well.  One of my favorite pieces was “Breezing Along With the Breeze,” in which two guys provided some comedic relief while tap dancing in roller skates!

In retrospect, I must say that this show fell quite short of my expectations.  Although I found the tap dancing extraordinary, I feel there are much more explosive shows out there.  These dancers were great when 2-3 people were on stage, but when they performed together it was impossible to discern what their feet were doing.  Overall, I understand what they were going for and I appreciate the historical lesson and tribute to tap legends like Gregory Hines, Fred Astaire, and Peg Legs Bates.

However, if I were offered a ticket to see this show again by Gregory himself, I would I have to politely shake my head and respond, “No Thank You, Gregory.”