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| Ballroom Blitz dancers |
Produced by Anthony Street – Choreographed by Aric Yegudkin
Musical Direction by Hayden Baird
Canberra Theatre – April 26th, 2026. Reviewed by
BILL STEPHENS.
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| Ballroom Blitz dancers in action. |
Fans of long running television dance shows Dancing With The Stars, and So You Think You Can Dance were in their element at Ballroom Blitz.
There were swivelling hips aplenty, sequins, spangles and
barely-there costumes decorating perfect bodies as ten highly accomplished
ballroom dancers performed a succession of virtuosic solos, duos and tightly
choreographed group routines conceived by Aric Yegudkin.
A three-time Dancing With The Stars Champion who has partnered
many of the ‘stars’ who competed in Dancing With The Stars, and a former
resident choreographer for So You Think You Can Dance, Yegudkin has devised
a spectacular stage presentation that showcases the skill, passion and
spectacle of ballroom dance.
The ten highly skilled dancers who make up the cast of
Ballroom Blitz have either appeared in various episodes of the television shows
or are award-winning Dance Sport competitors. They are Ruby Gherbaz, Daria
Walczac, Stephanie Cappas, Siobhan Power, Jessica Girvan, Joshua O’Grady, Steven
Greenwood, Shae Mountain, Peter Rodda and Sigurdur Sigurdsson.
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| Ballroom Blitz dancers in action |
They executed Yegudkin’s intricate choreographies, which fused elements of Tango, Viennese Waltz, Foxtrot, Quickstep, Jive, Samba, Rumba and Pasa Doble into captivating solos, trios, and group routines, with mesmerising skill and pizzaz.
Regretfully, because there were no programs available, or
any other means of identifying the dancers, it was not possible to identify the
individual dancers performing those routines.
But they danced to captivating arrangements of favourites including
“Moonlight Serenade”, “Putting On The
Ritz”, “Dancing in the Dark”, and “Unchained Melody” played by a multi-skilled live band consisting
of Hayden Baird (Musical Director, Sax,
Flute, Synth, Kane Watts (Drums), Liam Powell (Bass and Double Bass), Luke
Kozanski (Guitar) and Joseph Bonilla (Keys) who filled the theatre with lush
arrangements worthy of the finest ballrooms.
Incorporated in many of the routines were two vocalists,
Perri Espinoza, who during the program fascinated with her spectacular costume
wardrobe, (a different outfit for every song) and her impressive versatility
moving effortlessly between the song styles as varied as Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance with Somebody,
Tina Turner’s What’s Love Got to Do With It and Elvis Presley’s Hound Dog.
“The Voice”
contestant, Arthur Hull, in addition to adding vocals to many of the dance routines,
charmed in two feature moments with a superb rendition of Dancing in the
Dark for which he was accompanied on guitar by Luke Kozanski, and later with
a moody rendition of Dancing with a Stranger.
But his attempts at compering also provided an unfortunate low
spot of the evening when he took the stage shouting into his mike “Havin a good
time? Let me hear you! Havin a good time?”
before hectoring the already responsive audience to rate the sex-appeal of
dancer, Josh.
This ill-conceived, time-wasting effort at audience
participation, destroyed the atmosphere of glamorous sophistication engendered by
the rest of the show. The time spent on this segment would have been better
spent on voice over introductions identifying dancers in feature spots.
This lapse apart, Ballroom Blitz, offers audiences the rare
opportunity to experience top class ballroom dancers in a superbly produced, highly polished theatrical
spectacular.
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| Ballroom Blitz dancers in action. Images provided |
This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au
