Susan
Stroman's Lincoln Center production of Girl in a Yellow Dress followed by Twyla Tharp's
Broadway hit Movin' Out probably ushered in the popular dance genre that might now be called
the dance-thru musical. Like the juke-box musicals so popular of late, they
encompass interpolated music from various composers along with a compelling
story line. Girl in a Yellow Dress hangs its story line on a very simple premise; a man is
depressed by a life that is totally devoid of fulfillment to the point that he
contemplates suicide - until he frequents a neighborhood bar wherein he meets a
beautiful woman in a yellow dress and his life is turned around.
The
story behind VIDA!, the world premiere of which occurred recently in
Toronto as part of the city's Luminato Festival, has deeper roots. It is the
story of one woman named Vida (life) who grows up in old Havana spanning a
period beginning in the 1930s through to the present. The cross-cultural team
of Lizt Alfonso,
Kelly Robinson,
Diana Fernandez,
Yadira Hernandez
and musical composer Denis Peralta (with a ten member Afro-jazz orchestra) has invented a
breathtaking spectacle that has been hailed by the critics and cheered (and
cheered) by the multicultural audience flocking to the Royal Alexandra Theatre.
Undoubtedly
the strength of the piece springs from (besides the creative drivers who
steered it to the stage) the raison d'etre for the company itself. Lizt Alfonso Danza Cuba
is an all women dance troupe that goes beyond the traditional folklorico to
expound a mixture of influences that includes ballet, flamenco, Afro-Cuban,
jazz, modern and Cuban-rooted social dances such as the rumba and mambo. More
important, it gives the dance an object and purpose that goes beyond the
revelation of beautiful forms in graceful attitudes and the development of a
line agreeable to the eye. It is a story imbued with emotion, passion and
social dynamic.
The
guiding presence of the performance is "the older" Vida played by the
incomparable Omara Portuondo, one of the stars of Ry Cooder's documentary, The
Buena Vista Social Club. She narrates the story to her granddaughter Alma (the effervescent Yaraidy
Fernandez). One
technical misstep (in my opinion) had Portuondo speaking her lines in Spanish
but being drowned out by an English translation through the house sound system.
She quickly gave up trying to act the lines and capitulated to the fact that
her voice would be heard only when she sang. Better to have had the dialog translated
by way of printed supertitles than to drown out the star.
But
the heavy lifting in this show is carried by the 25 dancers who segue
effortlessly from one dance form to the next. Stand-outs include Yudisley
Martinez as the
romantic ingenue who falls in love with the single male dancer in the show, Vadim
Larramendi. And Maysabel
Pintado who
plays the menacing figure of Muerte (death) often costumed as a militarist.
The
set and costume design by Yannik Larivee evoked old Havana with nostalgia as well as
elegance. The confusing scene that portrays the outbreak of the Cuban
revolution in 1959 in which red handbills fall to the stage underscored by
music in a deep minor mode gives one pause to ask if this was a signal of
liberation or liability. Such is often the case when politics and art rub
shoulders side by side.