Laurence Olivier Award-nominee Adam Cooper brings his new dance production Shall We Dance to Sadler’s Wells as a tribute to the legendary American composer Richard Rodgers.
Cooper, in the starring role, plays a man desperately seeking his true love, but seemingly enjoying the chase. Managing to kiss all the principal dancers at least once during the show, his search takes him from glamorous ballrooms to seedy city clubs, a European fair, the Far East and the Wild West. All the while, the right girl is standing – or dancing in this case – right in front of him, but he is too distracted by the other women in his path to notice.
Set above the stage, the full orchestra plays Rodgers’s music exclusively, with one familiar song following another, as the cast of dancers come alive to tunes from classic musicals including The King And I, Babes In Arms, Cinderella and Oklahoma!. The simple stage transforms from location to location with projected images used to create an ever-changing backdrop of fields, chandeliers or star-filled skies.
Each scene sees the dancers adapt to the culture they now find themselves amid, mixing line dancing with tap in the Wild West, clad in checked shirts and steel-toed cowboy boots, ballroom dancing in vast, glittering taffeta dresses at a society ball, or in the somewhat nightmarish fair scene – what could be more frightening then an enraged puppeteer with crazy eyes wearing a coat Joseph himself would have been proud of? – in which the dancers become disjointed puppets controlled by the long pieces of string attached to their limbs.
With many of the dancers coming from musical theatre or straight acting backgrounds, the dialogue of the piece remains strong throughout as they successfully portray the characters’ struggles and emotions through both dance and silent interaction with one another.
The appeal of Shall We Dance is the eclectic mix of dance contained in just one show, as the performers use tap, jazz, ballet, character and ballroom dance to create a production that combines sophisticated old-fashioned glamour with a modern, sexy edge. And as a lesson in romance, when it comes to Cooper, it seems the answer to the question ‘Shall We Dance?’ is always a resounding and enthusiastic ‘Yes’.
CM