By Carol Davis
SAN DIEGO — Broadway/San Diego’s Burn The Floor will only be at the Civic Theatre for a short while longer. That’s a shame. It’ s a dance enthusiast’s paradise watching the company move at incredible speed with impeccable precision and style.
Burn the Floor is dubbed an international ballroom dance extravaganza. It includes Vienna Waltz, Cuban Cha Cha, Foxtrot, Rumba, Tango, Jive and Oh, so much more. The London Independent is quoted as saying that it’s ‘so hot, it contributes to global warming’.
Twenty dancers and two vocalists make up the company. They are all championship dancers and have a collective number of medals to prove it. Just a few hail from the states. The rest are representative of countries like Australia, Liverpool, Latvia and Dublin and there isn’t a weak link among them either collectively or individually.
The show opens with a bang, strobe lights in a smoky haze featuring “Ballroom Ballet”, “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” and “History Repeating” without so much as a pause in between. I can’t ever remember seeing anything like this before.
“Things That Swing”(seen in Act I) featured “The Dirty Boogie” that rounded out the first hour of the show and was the part I enjoyed best before intermission. I must admit, though that watching local favorite Mary Murphy waltzing across the stage with the handsome Vaidas Skimelis caught my breath.
Both vocalists, Vonzell Solomon or ‘Baby V” (from American Idol) and Peter Saul add a nice change along with the dancing. Watching percussionists Joseph Malone and Henry Soriano is a show unto itself. They are perched above and in back of the dancers in what looked like several members band, but no such luck. The rest of the music is phoned in or canned yet sounded OK.
Director/choreographer Jason Gilkison, a former World Champion Latin and Ballroom dancer and guest choreographer on the fourth season of So You Think You Can Dance keeps the pace so fast one wonders when the performers catch their breaths. They are at the peak of their athletic and artistic height the choreography ranges from bouncy to sensuous.
The success of a production such as this could not be complete without an exceptional lighting designer (Rick Belzer), which the show encompasses, and a costume designer with a new look for just about every number and every member of the ensemble (Janet Hine) from simple T shirts to shimmering dresses and gorgeous ball gowns.
If you think you can dance, try keeping up with these folks.
It’s definitely worth a try. Enjoy!
See you at the theatre.
Dates: Oct. 12-17
Organization: Broadway San Diego
Phone: 888-937-8995
Production Type: Dance, Dance, And Dance
Where: 3rd and B Streets, Downtown San Diego
Ticket Prices: $20.00-$94.00
Web: BroadwaySD.com
Venue: Civic Theatre
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Theatre reviewer Davis is based in San Diego.