Let's Dance - PLEASE

Last month I went to the Kennedy Center to see the Broadway musical "Come Fly Away," a dance revue choreographed by Twila Tharp and set to the accompaniment of Frank Sinatra's recorded voice and a live big band on stage.  I went with my good friend Phil (reason enough to enjoy the evening), and while it was a good show, we were both somewhat underwhelmed.  The rest of the audience felt the same, as evidenced by the rather reluctant, slow and gradual standing ovation - the kind in which the applause is sustained and everyone looks at everyone else for a cue to stand.  As we walked out into the night, neither one of us had much to say.


I wondered why; it was a brilliantly performed, perfectly executed show, packed with nonstop, amazing dancing and a whole company that made it look effortless.  The dancers were good-looking, the costumes were attractive, and the set was wonderful.  The music was - well, Frank - come on!  The band played flawlessly, as if Sinatra were live and on stage with them.  So why was the audience so restrained in its enthusiasm?


Today it finally hit me, after my workout, in the shower (where I have thought of short story plot lines, solved Lotus Notes application development coding problems, and composed music).  Yes, there is strength, power, and flexibility in dance.  Yes, dancers' feet do leave the floor.  Yes, people want to see excitement and come away wowed.  But for this dance lover, anyway, the dancing in the show was too - athletic.


Just like in figure skating, dancing has been becoming more and more athletic over many years.  Tuxes and floor-length gowns are out, and now dancers leap, throw each other, spin both vertically and horizontally, flip in the air, whip each other around violently, and do things that make you go "ouch" and feel imaginary back pain.  But whereas figure skating is actually an Olympic sport (which Scott Hamilton tried to emphasize by wearing only athletic stretch wear), dancing is arguably not.  Which is not to say it is not athletic - because it certainly can be - just that it is not a sport in the sense of competing and winning against an opposing player(s), reality/competition shows notwithstanding.  Why, then, does it have to continually increase in technical difficulty, at the expense of artistic expression?


Of course the same debate rages on in the figure skating world and probably always will.  Triple this and triple that are ho-hum, and now at least one quad jump is required to win.  Those on the sport side argue that scoring for artistic impression should count less; after all, no other Olympic sport has musical accompaniment (except the floor exercise in gymnastics) or has an artistic component at all.  Those on the artistic side recall the classical roots of figure skating and lament the fading of Tchaikovsky and sequins on the ice.


So it goes.


Fast forward to the 21st century and the glut of competition shows on TV, such as "So You Think You Can Dance."  The more outrageous the physicality, the greater the displays of strength and speed, the more violent the movement - the more excited the judges get, screaming their approval louder the more the sweat flies under the lights and the more revealing the lycra.


Maybe it's just that appetite thing: the more you get of something, the less satisfying it becomes and the more you need it to be more.  Everything has to be increasingly extreme, because anything less is ordinary.


I guess I've always been old school.  Give me Fred and Ginger any day over anyone else you can see today.  Now there was style.  There was grace.  There was humanity.  With dancers today, you get excited at their physical prowess and feats of strength.  With Cyd Charisse and Gene Kelly you were stirred emotionally.


Maybe I'm a slow adopter.  Maybe I don't like change.  Maybe I'm too nostalgic.  Or maybe I just like dancing the way I saw it on "The Carol Burnett Show," back when I wanted to grow up to be the next Fred Astaire.


Photo Credit: Broadway.com