By phone from L.A., ballet star Rasta Thomas says he created the Bad Boys of Dance, which visits the Auditorium Theatre this weekend, to make concert-dance more accessible, especially to young people. “I don’t mean any disrespect, now. I hope to one day be old and wealthy and go to the ballet and the opera, too. But I’ll ask my peers”—Thomas is 30—“ ‘You wanna come see me dance?’ and they’re, like, ‘No.’ ” He laughs.
When not on tour (they’re big in Germany), the Bad Boys all live together in a big house outside of Baltimore. They occasionally get fan mail. “When a guy writes me to say, ‘My wife takes me to stuff all the time and I hate it, but I liked your show,’ that’s the most flattering,” Thomas says. “When it comes from the dude who didn’t think that he’d enjoy what we do.”
Click through the slideshow above for all the deets on the cast of the Chicago show.
Rasta Thomas’s Bad Boys of Dance bust into the Auditorium Theatre Saturday 5 and Sunday 6.