'Shut Up and Dance'

Dance spirits, past and present

LEWIS WHITTINGTON

In the 14 years that the Pennsylvania Ballet’s dancers have staged the “Shut Up and Dance” benefit concert between their regular production schedules, they’ve raised more money each year for MANNA (Metropolitan AIDS Neighborhood Nutritional Alliance). The event has also become a way for these classically trained dancers to showcase their hidden talents as artists and people.

Some years have been better than others in terms of choreography and performance, but one thing is certain: The dancers' hearts are in the right place, and they make this a kick-ass event for a worthy cause. Where else can you hear Beethoven and the rap star Busta Rhymes from the same stage, or see Russian arabesque one minute and a Rio shimmy the next?

This was a transitioning year, with soloist Tara Keating taking over the directing duties, and she kept the proceedings streamlined and joyous. As the audience entered the Forrest Theater, a film of several dancers cavorting in dance-belts and tulle skirts was projected on a screen while the dancers warmed up to JJ's “That's the Way Love Goes” and Prince's “7.” Then that water theme floated onto the stage as the cast stripped down to bathing suits while dancing to Bobby Darin's “Beyond the Sea” in a beach blanket bingo scene. Christine Cox was hoisted by the surfer dudes à la Sandra Dee, and from there everybody kicked by and got in the mood.

The "Shut Up" concert is always a dance musical snapshot of any given year. The first emotional highlight came with a club mix of the hit from the musical Rent called “MANNAdu's Seasonings of Love,” with James Ihde supporting Riolama Lorenzo in a soulful, expressive series of lifts. This movement meditation, choreographed by the usually sardonic independent Philadelphia choreographer Brian Sanders, got to the heart of this benefit. Behind the dancers, MANNA volunteers pantomimed some of their work, eventually joining in the dancing and singing.

Next was “The Itch” by Ashley Food, who mixed the opening notes of Beethoven's Fifth with “Roll Over Beethoven” for two couples working out sexual tension and relationship angst. Unfortunately, these dancers were more comfortable jeteé-ing away from each other than getting loose with the jitterbug.

One of the pure dance highlights came next, with an excerpt from guest dance maker Igal Perry's “Intimate Voices” called “Embrace,” scored to music by J.S. Bach. Philip Colucci and Emily Hayden, dressed in black velvet spandex bodysuits, etched and sculpted this sensuous duet with flowing control. The pair mesmerized in the low- to-the-floor limb extensions that flowed into delicate embraces.

Hawley Rowe's “#3,” scored to haunting a capella lullaby music from “The Axis of Evil,” was an ambitious dance polemic on the plight of women in the Middle East. Emily Waters gave a haunting performance as a repressed figure trying to break out emotionally and physically.

“The Swans Must Go On” was Abigail Mentzer’s hilarious dance parody of “Swan Lake's” Cygnets sabotaging each other to vie to wear Odile's tiara, only to be upstaged by that scheming swan travesti Jermel Johnson.

“PM,” by frequent ”Shut Up and Dance” choreographer Meredith Rainey, constructed a dreamscape pas de trois for James Ihde, Frances Veyette and a luminous Hawley Rowe. The three dancers were costumed in weighty floor-length white skirts with black lining that were fanned out to frame the dancers' torsos with great effect. Rainey's port de bra upper body expressionism poignantly expressed Beethoven's “Moonlight Sonata.” Rainey also threw in some dance muscle, like Veyette's double tour (actually 2 ½ turns), with the skirt whipping around his sword straight legs.

Also displaying some powerful jumping was “Larvae,” a dance sketch by Heidi Cruz that used the dynamic raw power of three of the company's most powerful jumpers: Yosbel Delgado, Johnson and Veyette. Each fired off huge jetés, tours' en l'air and razor-sharp turns.

Adam Rodgers, one of the Pennsylvania Ballet's younger dancers, created “Fe,” an ethereal stream of women in silky lilac dresses flowing on and off the stage, evoking themes of loss and survival. In “Circle,” co-choreographed by Rainey and Zane Booker, Rainey looked like a dance god, dressed minimally in tight black tee and shorts. He started with a violent body spasm, then essayed dance fragments, moving in and out of the spotlight. Using a score of driving chamber music by Michael Nyman, Booker tapped into Rainey's versatility and technical prowess.

Christine Cox contributed two pieces. “SynChronic,” set to house-rap by Rhymes, paired Cox with Johnson. In it Cox shattered the ballet body for hip-hop phrases that break out into with double-tempo bump and grinds. Cox formulated pulsing torso isometrics into dynamic rhythmic tension for this club dance-sparing duet. Closing the program was “One Part Blue,” set to “Yellow,” a rock anthem by Coldplay that Cox used to drive flowing canon lines and communal configurations.

Director Keating promised that the concert's yearly rendition of Fokine's “Dying Swan” would be classical “with a twist.” Principal dancer Arantxa Ochoa appeared in severe dance diva mode as the doomed bird. For half of the work she played it straight, but Ochoa is a great enough dancer to inject comedic accents, and with the flick of a faux-feather she knocked out a lurking hunter faster than you can say Dick Cheney.

The percussion street band Alô Brasil came on stage with the cast for a free-wheeling finale in a raucous calypso line that spilled into the lobby and made its way to club Pure for a house party with the dancers and volunteers. It seems to be a Philadelphia cultural phenomenon that happy feet take to the dance floor to perform an exorcism. Fortunately, the club kids and real dancers engulfed them.