Sunday Morning Michael Dale: A Broadway Dance Classic Returns To Lincoln Center

What I know about ballet wouldn't fit inside a toe, much less a toe shoe...

...but I always make a pilgrimage to Lincoln Center whenever New York City Ballet puts George Balanchine and Richard Rodgers' Slaughter On Tenth Avenue on the docket.

Maybe it doesn't get the same recognition as Agnes De Mille's Oklahoma! Dream Ballet or Jerome Robbins' West Side Story gang clashes but this sexy, comical and melodramatic interlude precedes all other major Broadway dance classics.

It was created for the 1936 Rodgers and Hart/George Abbott musical On Your Toes, which was dealing with the then-contemporary issue of American orchestral jazz fighting for recognition and inclusion into the European-focused classical repertoire. Ray Bolger starred as a former vaudeville hoofer turned music teacher with a student who composed Slaughter, a jazz ballet he's trying to get a Russian troupe playing a touring gig in New York to consider putting into their program.

The ballet within the musical is a west side story set in a dive bar where a guy pays for a taxi dance with a stripper, keeping it clean under the watchful eye of her thuggish boss, but then, after hours, the two indulge in a vampy pas de deux. There a bit of gunplay involved and the drama hits a climax with the titular slaughter. Balanchine's flashy mix of classical moves, tap dancing and high kicking seduction are set to Rodgers' varied themes evoking romance, sizzle and rowdy New York noise.

In the original On Your Toes, Tamara Geva starred as the Russian prima ballerina who is excited to play a striptease artist, but when the company's male star can't quite get the upbeat syncopations right, Bolger's character is called in to replace him. The ego-bruised terpsichorean plots his revenge by hiring a hit man to sit in a theatre box at the premiere and, when Bolger's character ends the ballet by shooting himself in the head, to actually shoot him and then make an escape before the audience realizes what happened. Someone manages to inform the onstage hoofer of what's going on and his attempt to keep the show going while avoiding the assassin's bullet provides a wild finish.

I caught NYCB's presentation this week, as the finale of a program of Balanchine and Robbins pieces. They begin with a brief scene where Daniel Applebaum, hilarious as the ousted Russian hammily showing off his elegant artistry, pays off his hit man (Aaron Sanz), who, before taking his seat in a box, makes a display of following the house's COVID regulations.

Click here for a glimpse of how Sara Mearns and Tyler Angle heat up the stage as the hoofer and the stripper in a video where Mearns expresses her joy in performing a piece that allows her to let loose a bit from her formal technique.

Slaughter On Tenth Avenue will next be performed by NYCB on February 25th and 26th as part of their Short Stories program. Many of the local hangouts are closing early these days, but I found munching on the Truffle Cheese Tots over nightcaps at The Empire Rooftop a great way to end the evening, especially with it's dazzling picture window view of West 72nd Street at the Crossroads of the Upper West Side.

If I had a hat,,,

...I'd tip it to Quentin Earl Darrington, who solidly grounds MJ with his performance alternating between playing Michael Jackson's father, whose demand for perfection might be considered abusive, and Michael Jackson's director, who is trying to keep his star from physically abusing himself with his insistence on achieving perfection. He really earns that next-to-last bow.

The good news out of Corona, Queens...

...is that after a nearly two-year COVID shutdown, the Louis Armstrong House Museum, a required New York destination, I'd say, has opened its doors to the public again.

Despite his being an internationally known celebrity and recognized as one of the great pioneers of American music, Louis Armstrong and his wife Lucille chose to live comparatively modestly in the rather quiet neighborhood and the museum is, in fact, the home they bought in 1943, accessible only through small guided tours.

The décor of the home hasn't changed since Armstrong passed on in 1971, so there's 60's style shag carpeting, mirrored walls in the bathroom and, one of my favorite museum artifacts ever, his half-used bottle of Canoe after-shave.

But the real thrills await when you visit the study and hear snippets from the huge collection of tape recordings he made, speaking freely of his thoughts on music and the world around him in that unmistakable husky voice, Click here for a sample.

Curtain Line...

The best site-specific production I ever saw was A Chorus Line set in a Broadway theatre.