Review: ‘Come Fly Away’ a amatory reverence to Sinatra, romance
June 8, 2012 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
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“The physique says what difference cannot.”
The late dance fable Martha Graham might have avowed this philosophy, though one of her students, 70-year-old Tony Award-winning choreographer Twyla Tharp, breathed life into it with her latest ballet-meets-modern-meets-musical production, “Come Fly Away.” The salute to love’s forays and frustrations, told by choreography to Frank Sinatra songs, done a Pittsburgh premiere Tuesday during a Benedum Center, Downtown, as a initial uncover of a Pittsburgh CLO season. It runs by Sunday.
The inhabitant furloughed association peels behind a wall of a ’40s-flavored nightclub, finish with bar, cocktail tables, live rope and shelves of margarita eyeglasses and champagne flutes. For 80 mins (with no intermission), assembly members turn other faces in a swarming room, examination as about a dozen or so dancers embark on an dusk of erotic encounters, hilly event and flirty initial kisses.
Where: Pittsburgh CLO during Benedum Center, Downtown.
When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday.
Tickets: $10-$65.75. 412-456-6666 or www.pittsburghclo.org.
It opens with a recording of Sinatra crooning an a cappella delivery of “Stardust,” as dancers drip into a bar donning brief slinky dresses and suits with fedoras suggestive of ones ragged by Ol’ Blue Eyes. Their interactions tone a jazz dilemma with a picturesque aura: Some down (imaginary) drinks during a bar, a integrate snuggle cheek-to-cheek during a dilemma table, and a few group eye intensity dance partners.
Like other crossover ballets by Ms. Tharp (such as a 2002 “Movin’ Out” to Billy Joel tunes), no lines are spoken. And who needs them? Dancers’ gestures, facial expressions and character-to-character chemistry clearly communicate a lax narratives Ms. Tharp reserved to any performer, while withdrawal some room for interpretation. This adds to a clarity that assembly members are bar congregation examination a amicable theatre unfold. If they were doing so during a genuine club, they wouldn’t be means to hear other couples’ conversations over a music. As in a show, they contingency interpret physique transformation to theory a scoop.
Sinatra’s lyrics and a concomitant choreography serve clear a stories tied to any character. “Let’s Fall in Love” sets a theatre for a barkeeper to try to woo a bubbly brunette. Through awkward rises and comical-yet-cute stumbles, a span preciously embodies a unrestrained and confusion that can tone a budding relationship. In “I’ve Got a Crush on You,” a male pirouettes and pleads for a lady — as she glides about a dance building in a arms of another man. Aggressive partnering tosses and erotic embraces prominence a aria and doubt of a twin in “That’s Life.”
To Ms. Tharp’s credit, she doesn’t only underline a integrate for one strain and dance and afterwards trifle a performers behind into a ensemble. Pairs are revisited via a performance, permitting a assembly to watch their adore grow, pulp or be expel aside for new admirers. These sum make a characters some-more three-dimensional and a uncover value saying again and again.
The athleticism and behaving of a artists — dual with ties to Pittsburgh, Stephen Hanna and Ron Todorowski — carried such self-assurance and frail execution of Ms. Tharp’s melting pot of ballet, lyrical, complicated and jazz choreography. The heartbeat of a opening came from a large band-style instrumental ensemble, that resurrected Sinatra’s classics with magnificence and some punch.
Although a Sinatra strain book dates behind decades, a prolongation was impressively uninformed and contemporary. The costuming and view featured retro hints, though a stories they helped demonstrate could have taken place during a jazz cafeteria in a ’50s or final week during a nightclub in a Strip District.
“Come Fly Away” might be true dance, though a characters and choreography are crafted with such glamour and abyss that a longtime adore of a art form is not a exigency to conclude it. It’s for anyone who’s ever stomached a butterflies of a crush, who’s played tough to get, who’s longed for someone else’s swain or who’s desired deeply and mislaid deeply — and isn’t fearful to remove and adore again.
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