Steve On Broadway (SOB)

Burn The Floor (The SOB Review)

Burn The Floor (The SOB Review) - Longacre Theatre, New York, New York

**1/2 (out of ****)

Burn The Floor? More like burn the calories.

Possessing what is surely Broadway's lowest body fat quotient per cast, Burn The Floor's intensely high level of energy makes Jason Gilkison's dazzling ballroom choreography breathtaking (read: exhausting) to watch.

Perhaps Gilkison is tapping into some pent-up demand for dance extravaganzas on Broadway. After all, it's been nearly one full decade since the debut of Contact, the last in a considerable string of choreography-heavy shows that threatened to forever redefine what constituted a Great White Way "musical" -- fortunately, they did not.

For his effort, Gilkison has added one part "Strictly Ballroom," two parts "Dancing With The Stars," another part "So You Think You Can Dance," filtered out any story line and celebrity judging, then shaken it up for a fizzy concoction so intensely under pressure that it's no wonder the cork on his bottle shoots off in an explosive pop.

Speaking of those television shows, "Dancing With The Stars" and "So You Think You Can Dance" appear frequently among the credits for many of this unmistakably sexy cast. In fact, Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Karina Smirnoff from the former are billed as "special guest stars" as if from some hokey television show (they are set to depart the show on August 16). However, they're made a bit superfluous by the rest of Burn The Floor's joyous troupe, which is at its passionate and effervescent best in the show's high octane numbers.

Yet tunes like the Peter Cetera/Cher hit "After All" quickly transform whatever's chic to cheesy, giving Burn The Floor less a whiff of the bold, new direction that Broadway has enjoyed during the last ten years than a faint stale scent from a second-tier Las Vegas showroom.

But I dare you to sit through this show and not be awed by the assembled talent and their intoxicating moves. Think "tastes great, less filling."

This is Steve On Broadway (SOB).

Labels: Broadway, Burn The Floor, Jason Gilkison, Karina Smirnoff, Maksim Chmerkovskiy, Musical, The SOB Review

posted by Steve On Broadway (SOB) @ Monday, August 03, 2009