It would be a shame, a real shame, if Classique Dance Company ever slows down and allow its reputation as the most exciting thing to happen to dance here in so long, slip away.
We can sit around and debate whether the sometimes wild antics its dancers pull off on stage are publicity stunts or the spontaneity of care-free dancers; whatever it is the feel of their shows are different, good different.
And remember those days when we use to say that its Classique’s world, we just live in it; nothing has changed. Clive Prowell continues to unleash a vision of dance so dynamic, compelling and crazy it is hard not to fall in love.
The spunky dancer, Luciana is the type of woman so many dream of being; brave, full of attitude and can pull off a barely-there bikini on a national stage while weighing in as ‘plus-size’.
The production was called, ‘Intrapment’, though based on how things unfolded it could have easily been called, ‘Fabulous’. The dancers were hitting every move right, the music felt right, and for some parts of the production they were able to pull the rug from right under you; just like that!
Intrapment was a throw-back to old Classique when the dancers were fresh and really firing and the characters they created on stage were unforgettable; it was also a window into where Classique is going and if Prowell doesn’t set the right focus they could end up being that dance school where the people are good but never great.
It is easy to imagine some of the Classique dancers as great dancers, people like Paul Charles who still steals the spotlight whenever he is on stage. In the piece, ‘Life’, Charles was a lamb and a beast on stage. The song, I suspect, was meant to take the audience to a place where life was too much to bear and yet still worth living. It feed us the entire range of emotions; agonies, joy, rejection, love, support, struggles, triumph etc. It was watching something precious unfold, and there he was; Charles, dancing for his life on the stage.
Any dancer who can appear on stage and prompt people to start making a huge fuss before he even moves a single muscle is the type of dancer worth watching; Charles is that dancer. Someone needs to get this guy out of this country and fast-track him to a serious audition where he stands a real shot at proving himself.
Then there is the whole troupe of core dancers within Classique who remind us why we go to see them every time they put on a show; dancers like Travis Bowen, Leslyn Lashley; Meleesa Payne, John Reman and Ivor Williams – they are simply good.
Intrapment served up a first half that packed a combination of solid dances and others where the performers are clearly now learning. But why shut them out? They make us feel human and it is their shaky moves that comfort many of us because we realize that many of the core dancers started out the same way; some might have been obviously gifted back then.
The youths in Classique; the babies with the fresh faces and new steps in the school injected innocence into the show and even when some tried to deliver a booty-shaking interpretation of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies”, it was easy to see as them as adorable and nothing else.
One of the favourite items of the show on September 4, was a stop over to a Sunday morning prayer and worship session somewhere in the US, south. It was Baptist worship and the dancers hit every move just right. When it was over the moves were still haunting you as was the music.
Prowell knows how to create a scandal and this last production was no different; he threw in a number called, ‘Skinny V Fluffy girls’. If the name is not enough to paint the picture, the dancers played it out all too vividly. By the time the number was over; the audience at the National Cultural was on its feet, nothing was audible due to the ruckus and the dancer, Luciana was on the stage in her one-piece, thong bikini. The fluffy girls won the battle that much was clear.
