Strictly Gershwin

Strictly Gershwin is flashy, brash, uninhibitedly vivacious and an obvious audience pleaser. Its association to classical ballet at best is peripheral but as a dance show it’s exhilarating. The combination of big orchestra, Gershwin tunes, and a ballet company letting their hair down with tap, Latin and ballroom is irresistible. Artistic director Li Cunxin’s pulse for the commercial has never been more acute and judging by the unabashedly bravura audience reaction he could have another annual Nutcracker on his hands if he chose to program it.

Created in 2008 by Derek Deane for the English National Ballet the show has since been revived in London and has toured extensively throughout Britain. This production, the first in Australia, has been remounted by Deane and features a dream quartet of singers (stars in their own right) - Rachel Beck, Michael Falzon, Alexandra Flood and Luke Kennedy, costumes from the ENB and original music adaptor Gareth Valentine leading the Queensland Symphony Orchestra on-stage with an augmented jazz section.

The ballet company danced with precision and verve, capturing the style of the Gershwin’s era, the twenties and the thirties, with accuracy. Highlights included Mia Heathcote and Vito Bernasconi in An American in Paris (the nearest the show came to classical dance), which elegantly recreated the joire de vive of the original MGM movie. Bernasconi also shone in a fabulous duet with Clare Morehen in Summertime that had grace and a touching finesse.

Eleanor Freeman and Alexander Idaszak lit up the stage in Shall We Dance, which benefitted enormously from the core girls in heels, while tappers Kris Kerr and Bill Simpson proved their expertise in Fascinatin’ Rhythm and joined by Rachael Walsh were a powerhouse trio with Oh, Lady Be Good.

But nothing could top the heat generated by Lina Kim and Victor Estevez’s rumba version of It Ain’t Necessarily So. A terrific arrangement coupled with a fiery and sexy Latin routine, it didn’t only burn the floor it scorched it.

Blue tutus and sequins were the order of the day in a glitzy overblown treatment of Rhapsody in Blue which had pianist Daniel Le doing sterling service on a much too over-amplified piano.

Alexander Flood sang a wistful Someone to Watch Over Me, Rachel Beck’s The Man I Love was haunting, Michael Falzon and Luke Kennedy coupled nicely for a melancholic But Not For Me, and together all four were outstanding in a close-harmony version of A Foggy Day.

Gareth Valentine’s music charts were a marvellous valentine to Gershwin with their tone palette enhancing the composer’s signature jazz and blue-note sound and his subtle use of musical quotes from songs that were not in the main program. A dynamo on the podium his performance leading the orchestra was a show-piece unto itself and the orchestra responded with their usual brilliance.

Strictly Gershwin may have been short on classical dance but as a piece of entertainment it was in the words of Gershwin S ‘Wonderful!

Peter Pinne

Note: Reviewed at the Saturday 28^th May matinee performance.

Images (From top): Principal dancers Laura Hidalgo and Victor Estevez, & Laura Hidalgo and Joel Woellner. Photographer: David Kelly