There’s a lot of flesh being flashed in this dance version of Shakespeare’s enduring tale, from Rasta Thomas’s unsubtly named Bad Boys Of Dance company. Plenty of perfectly chiselled abs, pecs and glutes, lots of impressive acrobatic dance moves and even the odd cleanly executed ballet step.
They’re all bolted into a Frankenstein’s monster of a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ by choreographer Adrienne Canterna, who seems to have no idea how to make a narrative piece with any sense of internal rhythm or flow, or how to approach characterisation through dance. Tybalt signifies being ‘bad’ by repeatedly grabbing his crotch, MJ-style. Juliet’s hapless suitor Paris acts like an escapee from ‘Footloose’. And Juliet (performed by Canterna herself) rarely seems anything other than bubblegum bland, although with her La Cicciolina hairstyle and hyper-flexibility, her neon-pink-lit love scene with Romeo bears alarming resemblance to Jeff Koons’s kitsch-tastic sculptures.
The grinding lurches from scene to scene are emphasised by the decision to largely ditch the famous Prokofiev ballet score in favour of snatches of Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ and a hodge-podge of pop music, from Katy Perry to Swedish House Mafia. Romeo and Juliet meet to Usher, marry to Gaga, and Juliet tops herself to ‘Unchained Melody’. The whole romance has about as much deep feeling as two drunk kids getting hitched in Vegas for a dare.
But amid all the garishness and gaucheness, there are some talented dancers in this predominantly male company. They tackle the ‘rich dance tapestry’ (ie mess of styles) – from classical to jazz, ciroc to street dance – with enthusiasm and pull off their crowd-pleasing jetees, flips and spins with panache and not a little Chippendales-style showmanship. So if you want something to whoop and holler at after a few bottles of pink fizz, then this might be the show for you.