On with the show!
Jun. 16th, 2005 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slipjig3Last night ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rafaela and I attended the night of Abbey's after-school program's talent show. Those of you with children know roughly what you're in for; those without I will ask to think back to your own childhoods, and the talent shows at your own respective halls of education, perhaps ones you yourself performed in.
Yeah. That.
I must say, though, that we were caught quite by surprise—the show was quite entertaining, and there was a substantial amount of talent that I could describes "talent" without the use of irony quotes. The vast majority of acts were dance numbers, because choreographed dance is the great equalizer for grade school kids. All you need is sufficient practice and twelve of your friends to back it up, and you're instantly a Star. That said, there were quite a few people dancing who knew what they were doing, including one 10-odd-year-old boy who got up solo to an Usher song and moved like my sorry-ass suburban body never will. (I must write down that kids name, and have it on hand for when he becomes obscenely famous in ten years or so.) Beyond that, there was a large selection of Latin numbers, probably because one of the group leaders is Latina (and graced with nice legs, I might add), and a bunch of dance-hop bits, complete with more partial costumes and money-maker-shakin' than I really want to be seeing in a grade school production, thank you very much.
Out of 14 or so acts, I counted exactly three that weren't dance-related. One was the opening skit performed by the kindergarden class, about a little girl who dreamed of fairies, and wanted to become one, said wish of course becoming true. Casting consisted of one girl with stage presence as our heroine, one adult as a fairy godmother, and about 5,926 6-year-olds in fairy wings that swarmed on and off the stage like a litter of beagle puppies at feeding time. They had a few lines, spoken en masse, but their part mostly consisted of laughter from off-stage. Except that this was stage laughter, as performed by six-year-olds. To illustrate, take a moment to imagine how Dustin Hoffman would have laughed as the Rain Man. Now multiply it by 5,926 children's voices, with no intention of staying in unison and no internal volume control: "HA HA HA HA. HA HA HA. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA." Intoned as if they were reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Every now and again they'd fade, or neglect to start in the first place, and their group leader would murmur into the microphone, "I don't hear any laaauughiiiing...." which would start them up again: "HA HA HA HA. HA HA. HA."
And then there was Anthony, a friend of Abbey's and a really nice, outgoing kid, who gave us what has to be the most astonishing, bravest thing I've ever seen on a stage. He dragged two chairs to face each other in the middle of the stage, placed a stuffed animal on each, and stood between them while they cued up the music. And then, he proceeded to sing "I Can't Fight This Feeling Any More" by R.E.O. Speedwagon. All of it. Right along with the record. Only being around 8 or so, he couldn't really sing, and he had no microphone, so his voice couldn't even project to the edge of the stage with the backing tracks drowning him out, let alone to us in the audience. So all we saw was this poor kid in spiky hair and oversized chinos rocking from foot to foot and wringing his hands (we couldn't even see his lip movements from where we were), and occasionally acting out the lyrics. Think about this for a second. When the chorus mentions "crawling on your floor," he crawled on the floor, flinging himself back onto his feet in time to mime "crashing through your door" on the next line. By the last verse, he was reenacting a romance between the stuffed animals that ended with him giving flowers to the happy couple. It was painful, painful to watch, but impossible not to, because he had completely committed himself to it, and didn't so much as flinch—and there was not a single person in that room that wasn't rooting for him heart and soul. It was the act that Andy Kaufman had been striving for all his life, and never achieved.
Oh, and Anthony showed up in the last non-dance act, holding a cardboard dummy and backpedaling like George Foreman while a karate student kicked the crap out of it.
And Abbey? Hers was a dance thing, too, costumed modestly and set to a J. Lo number, and I have to say that, even filtering out parental bias, she was fabulous. The choreography was surprisingly complex; it was the sort of thing that would not have been out of place on stage at the MTV Awards. Now, Abbey and the others aren't professionals, obviously, but for the most part they nailed it. Abbey's got a real knack for performing, and knew how and when to smile, and how to project her aura along with her moves. And let me say this, too: That. Girl. Can Dance. I don't know when or how that happened, but she's Got It. When everyone went up for the finale and sang "We Are Family," she broke into a few spontaneous dance steps. Not the choreographed stuff, but, like, club moves. And my jaw dropped. She didn't get that from me, and it hurts to say that.
So, yeah, two thumbs up for the show. The shrieking, hair-pulling, chair-kicking audience, however, was another matter. Ah, well. Such is theatre.
rafaela and I attended the night of Abbey's after-school program's talent show. Those of you with children know roughly what you're in for; those without I will ask to think back to your own childhoods, and the talent shows at your own respective halls of education, perhaps ones you yourself performed in.Yeah. That.
I must say, though, that we were caught quite by surprise—the show was quite entertaining, and there was a substantial amount of talent that I could describes "talent" without the use of irony quotes. The vast majority of acts were dance numbers, because choreographed dance is the great equalizer for grade school kids. All you need is sufficient practice and twelve of your friends to back it up, and you're instantly a Star. That said, there were quite a few people dancing who knew what they were doing, including one 10-odd-year-old boy who got up solo to an Usher song and moved like my sorry-ass suburban body never will. (I must write down that kids name, and have it on hand for when he becomes obscenely famous in ten years or so.) Beyond that, there was a large selection of Latin numbers, probably because one of the group leaders is Latina (and graced with nice legs, I might add), and a bunch of dance-hop bits, complete with more partial costumes and money-maker-shakin' than I really want to be seeing in a grade school production, thank you very much.
Out of 14 or so acts, I counted exactly three that weren't dance-related. One was the opening skit performed by the kindergarden class, about a little girl who dreamed of fairies, and wanted to become one, said wish of course becoming true. Casting consisted of one girl with stage presence as our heroine, one adult as a fairy godmother, and about 5,926 6-year-olds in fairy wings that swarmed on and off the stage like a litter of beagle puppies at feeding time. They had a few lines, spoken en masse, but their part mostly consisted of laughter from off-stage. Except that this was stage laughter, as performed by six-year-olds. To illustrate, take a moment to imagine how Dustin Hoffman would have laughed as the Rain Man. Now multiply it by 5,926 children's voices, with no intention of staying in unison and no internal volume control: "HA HA HA HA. HA HA HA. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA." Intoned as if they were reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Every now and again they'd fade, or neglect to start in the first place, and their group leader would murmur into the microphone, "I don't hear any laaauughiiiing...." which would start them up again: "HA HA HA HA. HA HA. HA."
And then there was Anthony, a friend of Abbey's and a really nice, outgoing kid, who gave us what has to be the most astonishing, bravest thing I've ever seen on a stage. He dragged two chairs to face each other in the middle of the stage, placed a stuffed animal on each, and stood between them while they cued up the music. And then, he proceeded to sing "I Can't Fight This Feeling Any More" by R.E.O. Speedwagon. All of it. Right along with the record. Only being around 8 or so, he couldn't really sing, and he had no microphone, so his voice couldn't even project to the edge of the stage with the backing tracks drowning him out, let alone to us in the audience. So all we saw was this poor kid in spiky hair and oversized chinos rocking from foot to foot and wringing his hands (we couldn't even see his lip movements from where we were), and occasionally acting out the lyrics. Think about this for a second. When the chorus mentions "crawling on your floor," he crawled on the floor, flinging himself back onto his feet in time to mime "crashing through your door" on the next line. By the last verse, he was reenacting a romance between the stuffed animals that ended with him giving flowers to the happy couple. It was painful, painful to watch, but impossible not to, because he had completely committed himself to it, and didn't so much as flinch—and there was not a single person in that room that wasn't rooting for him heart and soul. It was the act that Andy Kaufman had been striving for all his life, and never achieved.
Oh, and Anthony showed up in the last non-dance act, holding a cardboard dummy and backpedaling like George Foreman while a karate student kicked the crap out of it.
And Abbey? Hers was a dance thing, too, costumed modestly and set to a J. Lo number, and I have to say that, even filtering out parental bias, she was fabulous. The choreography was surprisingly complex; it was the sort of thing that would not have been out of place on stage at the MTV Awards. Now, Abbey and the others aren't professionals, obviously, but for the most part they nailed it. Abbey's got a real knack for performing, and knew how and when to smile, and how to project her aura along with her moves. And let me say this, too: That. Girl. Can Dance. I don't know when or how that happened, but she's Got It. When everyone went up for the finale and sang "We Are Family," she broke into a few spontaneous dance steps. Not the choreographed stuff, but, like, club moves. And my jaw dropped. She didn't get that from me, and it hurts to say that.
So, yeah, two thumbs up for the show. The shrieking, hair-pulling, chair-kicking audience, however, was another matter. Ah, well. Such is theatre.
