GBSC has a winner with Swan Lake in Blue: A Jazz Ballet through March 1
By GAIL LOWE
STONEHAM — Ilyse Robbins, please take center stage and give a deep bow to your adoring audience. You deserve it for directing and choreographing “Swan Lake in Blue: A Jazz Ballet.” So do the entire cast and 16 musicians who danced and played their way into our hearts this past Saturday night.
While this reviewer is at it, Steve Bass, please join Robbins on stage for creating and composing this wonderful world premiere dance event.
Now, here’s why readers should place a call or hurry to the box office to get tickets. Without exception, this is the best show to grace the Greater Boston Stage Company in a long while. Even without dialogue, the production has it all. It’s romantic, bold, sexy and jaw-dropping, and these eyes could not take in anything else while the dancers danced and the musicians played.
The first half of the show opens with a group of tap dancers reviewing a combination at an audition for Florenz Siegfried’s (Andy McLeavey) latest Broadway show. At Siegfried’s side is his assistant Ben Kelly (Jackson Jirard).
The entire ensemble showcases their tap talents with waltz clogs, pullbacks, time step varieties and everything in between. The men then take over the stage followed by the women. Principal dancer Sara Coombs as Odette arrives late and joins the other female tappers. She picks up the combination quickly and is found to be the perfect partner for Siegfried. But at the last minute, she gets cold feet, pushes Siegfried away and runs out of the studio, leaving a matchbox behind that bears the inscription “The Swan Club.” So taken with Odette is Siegfried that he and Ben go to the Club to find her. Siegfried soon finds himself embroiled in a love triangle: Himself, Odette and Club owner Von Rothbart (David Visini). A fight ensues, with Rothbart the winner.
The second half features mostly jazz dance and Latin rhythms, including mambo, rhumba and samba, and opens in Siegfried’s studio the following day when auditions resume. Soon, a beautiful woman Odile (also played by Coombs) dressed in a black ballet costume arrives, and Siegfried mistakes her for Odette. After sweeping her into his arms for a passionate kiss, the real Odette enters the studio with Rothbart and runs out after witnessing the kiss.
Midway through the second half, the stage backdrop changes to indigo, suggesting that nighttime has arrived. Just as the ballet has a tragic end, this production does, too.
The dancing and music seen and heard on GBSC’s stage was superb. Jirard and a few other male dancers showcased their ability to perform triple pirouettes, split jumps and difficult tap steps that brought audible exclamations. The “Little Swans” from “The Swan Club” (Briana Fallon and Gillian Mariner Gordon) brought the house down with their sexy burlesque routine.
Said Bass, “Jazz was my first musical love, and I’ve always loved tap dance. This piece is ballet at its core—storytelling through dance and instrumental music—and I’ve replaced the classical orchestra with a jazz big band and replaced the ballet dancers with tap, jazz and lyrical dancers.
“The idea was to have something that looked and sounded much closer to a Broadway musical but with no words—a jazz ballet . . . I wanted to base it on Tchaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake’ and began adapting the classic fairy tale into a 1940s New York setting.”
Robbins is a celebrated tap dancer, having shared the stage with Gregory Hines. “This is the perfect complement to GBSC’s commitment to telling familiar stories in fresh new ways,” she commented.
Ensemble dancers include Mike Herring, Claire Lawrence, Lily Lawrence, H.C. Lee, Erica Lundin, Maya McClain and Michael Skrzek. Musicians, including Bass, are Peter Antinozzi, Christopher Beaudry, Bob Bowlby, Dave Burdett, Mike Caudill, George Darrah, Clayton DeWalt, Peter Fanelli, Nick Francese, Daniel Gabel, Alex Lee-Clark, Christian Marrero, Adam Mejaour, William Vint and Nigel Yancey.
Thundering applause also goes to lighting designer Chris Fournier, Costume Designer Kevin Hutchins and Scenic and Prop Designer Tori Oakes. Kudos, one and all!