A Five, Six, Seven, Eight!

Ballroom dancing show Burn the Floor has opened on Broadway for a limited engagement, sparking speculation on the public's newfound fascination with ballroom dance. Both this Reuters article by Michelle Nichols and this one by Newsday's Linda Winer note the somewhat unexpected popularity of ballroom dance reality shows like So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing with the Stars. Nichols reports that ballroom dancing classes have become significantly more crowded in the past few years, with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre's public dance classes seeing a 40% jump this year alone.

I, however, have a lot of trouble watching dance. Of any kind. When I became hopelessly obsessed with the Cats video (I was thirteen, shut up), I would fast forward through the extended dance sequences. I was bored out of my mind when I saw performance of the Royal Ballet in London a few years ago. I respect dance immensely and think it can work powerfully in musical theatre (and on its own, for that matter), but I tend to zone out during dance heavy production numbers. And no, I haven't seen either So You Think You Can Dance or Dancing with the Stars.

When dance affects me--and sometimes it does!--it's because of story. I saw an Alvin Ailey performance in Boston a few years ago not expecting very much, but I was floored. Despite the lack of any words or a clear narrative in any of the pieces, I was incredibly engrossed in each one.

Movement, I realized, can express far more than stereotypical old-school Broadway production numbers led me to believe. I've only seen clips from the 2000 dance musical Contact, but from what I know of it, the piece strives to do just that. Same with Twyla Tharp's Movin' Out in 2002.

So I definitely think it's good that a dance show is playing on Broadway, if only for a little while. It's important that Broadway be a home for a range of things theatrical--not only because it exposes more people to live theatre, but also because every time something that's not quite a play or not exactly a musical opens, it makes us rethink the ways we cateogorize theatre. Musical theatre in particular.

I don't plan on seeing Burn the Floor. Dance isn't really my thing. But I'm excited that something so current and mainstream is on Broadway. And I hope that someone watching it gets inspired to use ballroom dance in a more narrative driven musical. A musical version of Strictly Ballroom, anyone?