Review: TRAVIS WALL'S SHAPING SOUND Brings Eclectic Dreamscape to the Beacon Theatre

Travis Wall was the runner-up to the winner of Season 2 of Fox's So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) and later became an Emmy Award-winning choreographer for the show. He choreographed Off-Broadway's musical, Bare, in 2012 and was a resident of River City in Broadway's 2000 revival of The Music Man at the age of 12.

Today, at 28, he's the Artistic Director of Shaping Sound, a company of 15 dancers that brought its eclectic 90-minute show to the Beacon Theatre on February 8, 2016. Shaping Sound was cofounded by Nick Lazzarini, the Season 1 winner of SYTYCD, Teddy Forance, and Kyle Robinson, all of whom shared the night's choreographic duties.

Missing from the New York performance was Jaimie Goodwin, another SYTYCD alum, who had to undergo surgery in late January. She had played the lead female role throughout the tour but was replaced at the Beacon by Mallauri Esquibel.

The evening was divided into two acts featuring mixed styles of dance and music, starting with the full company dressed in street clothes and dancing rapidly in the space like a New York rush hour set to percussive techno music.

A narrative ran through the entire program centered on the breakup of Esquibel and her lover, played by Robinson. They danced on a bed, which was actually a diagonal platform in a bed frame. The slanted structure allowed us to fully see the dancers even when they laid down during some of the movement.

After the breakup, we saw Esquibel curled up in bed alone, followed by a series of dreamscapes in which she was forced to confront her hopes, fears, and demons. The program notes said, "If we give in and allow our dreams to take over, only then can we delve into our innermost thoughts and confront our demons."

The first two-thirds of Act I was performed using a somber black and white color palette. Then everything changed as the color red was introduced in lighting and Esquibel's costume in a sequence called Rouge Lounge, all while Nina Simone sang Wild is the Wind. This sultry piece mixed the 40s with the 20s as the women wore flapper costumes with garter belts and the men wore black pants, white t-shirts, fedoras, and suspenders. The music switched to Gershwin's In the Mood and the sexy standard, Why Don't You Do Right?, followed by Benny Goodman's Sing Sing Sing.

Bob Fosse also famously choreographed to Sing Sing Sing in his Broadway show, Dancin', starring Ann Reinking in a fringed skirt. Shaping Sound's choreographers appeared to pay homage to Fosse (one of the female dancers even wore a fringed skirt for this portion of the piece), but they definitely made it their own. The number was a showstopper, allowing the dancers to show off their virtuosity in multiple pirouettes, complex lifts, a little jitterbug, and sheer speed.

Act II opened with a humorous number to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, followed by the appearance of Teddy Forance as Esquibel's "dream man." Their romantic pas de deux was reminiscent of the pieces Wall has choreographed for SYTYCD. But the romance was short-lived, as numbers called Corruption and Darkness brought in the couple's demons to try to split them apart. An interesting portion of this demon sequence consisted of horizontal lines of dancers behind the lovers, as the dancers' arms moved in unison like puppet strings trying to control the couple.

The best choreography of the evening was Robinson and Chantel Aquirre's pas de deux on the slanted bed, followed by the men using the same set piece to roll across it and propel off of it. This allowed the dancers to be at varying levels in the vertical space simultaneously, creating multilayered textures.

As morning began to arrive for Esquibel, there was an unexplained pas de deux between two men, played by Wall and 2015 SYTYCD winner Ricky Ubeda. While I wasn't sure how this piece fit into the narrative, it was a stunning work. Shirtless and in black pants, the men performed innovative, difficult lifts that created surprising shapes. It's rare to see such dancing between two men, and it evoked the loudest cheers from the audience.

The finale, Waking Life, harkened back to the opening with Esquibel realizing that her relationship with Robinson was unhealthy, and finally finding love with Forance.

Such a mix in one evening usually only works if each piece is a separate entity, but structured as a dreamscape, the diversity made sense. I look forward to what Shaping Sound will bring us next. Hopefully, they will introduce some female choreographers into the mix.

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