Christopher Wheeldon’s dance version of the 1951 MGM movie An American in Paris has opened – in the French capital, fittingly – and has become the Théâtre du Châtelet’s fastest-selling show. It seems crazy that the Gene Kelly musical hasn’t been seen on stage before (bar a 2008 “prequel” by the American playwright Ken Ludwig), considering its serious dance pedigree and climactic 16-minute dream ballet. Wheeldon’s version features the Royal Ballet first artist Leanne Cope in the Leslie Caron role and New York City Ballet’s Robert Fairchild channelling Kelly. But Wheeldon is not the only one looking to Hollywood for inspiration. The radical American choreographer Sally Silvers just premiered her piece Actual Size in New York, in her own words “subterfuging the films and motifs of Alfred Hitchock”. And there’s more …
Edward Scissorhands
Tim Burton has endorsed this dance remake of his 1990 film by master of reinvention Matthew Bourne. Although Bourne is best known for twisting existing tales – turning Swan Lake gay, putting vampires in Sleeping Beauty – this one is a pretty straight retelling of the story of Edward, the boy with blades for fingers and unexpected tonsorial talents. Bourne’s version is strong on cartoonish comedy and saturated colours (thanks to designer Lez Brotherston), full of suburban American housewives, picket fences and excellent topiary, and even incorporates some of Danny Elfman’s film score. There’s less of the ethereal magic and bittersweet tragedy of Burton’s film, but it’s hard to rival that Johnny Depp-Winona Ryder chemistry, although dancers Dominic North and Ashley Shaw will have a go when the show is revived for this year’s Christmas season at Sadler’s Wells.
• Edward Scissorhands is at Sadler’s Wells until 11 January.
Insane in the Brain
Cypress Hill meets Ken Kesey as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest gets the hip-hop treatment. (OK, so this was actually a book first, but it’s Jack Nicholson’s maniacal grin that everyone remembers.) Originally made in 2006, it’s the biggest hit that the Swedish street dance company Bounce have had. The show offers an energetic reimagining of the original – think ballet versus breakdancing – with Nurse Ratched portrayed as a sadistic ballet mistress, forcing her patients into stiff classical lines when all they want to do is express themselves in elasticated angles. Here, hip-hop means freedom and individuality against the restrictions of convention. One inspired scene sees the dancers attached to bungee cords as they’re shocked by a dose of electroconvulsive therapy. Maybe turning a story about mental illness into upbeat spectacle shouldn’t work, but it does.
Some Like it Hip Hop
This show may bear only a fleeting resemblance to Billy Wilder’s classic comedy, but presumably it was such a neat title they couldn’t resist. It does feature cross-dressing shenanigans (two girls dressed as fellas this time), but the comparisons run somewhat thin after that. Instead there’s a repressive regime, a lost father and a soulful R&B soundtrack. Still, director Kate Prince and her back-flippin’, head-spinnin’ company ZooNation whizz up such ebullient energy that you’re happy to go with the plot, whatever it is. There’s no Marilyn Monroe, but a cracking cast includes Tommy Franzen and Teneisha Bonner, a female hip-hop dancer who can do everything the guys do. There may not be much of the original in there, but it’s a massive crowd-pleaser nonetheless.
Amarcord
Luciano Cannito’s dance remake of Amarcord, Federico Fellini’s semi-autobiographical 1973 film, hasn’t made it to Britain yet, but we’d like to see it. Based on Fellini’s memories of growing up in a coastal town between the wars in fascist Italy, the Italian choreographer’s rehash features a cast of eccentric characters riding the political frictions of the 1930s. Endorsed by Fellini’s niece Francesca, Cannito aimed to take “an impressionist point of view of the movie” – big on flirtation, comedy and, from what we’ve seen, glamorous high-kicking girls in tea dresses. Dance, which can be so strong on sensuality and surreality, is a good match for Fellini; dance audiences are used to suspending their disbelief, after all. Cannito first made the show back in 1995 and has reworked it a number of times since then. It’s toured to New York and LA and was revived in Rome earlier this year.
Dirty Dancing
The ultimate hen night show. Dirty Dancing is a retro teen fantasy of pedal pushers, Patrick Swayze and innocent sexual awakening via the medium of the mambo (the illegal abortion storyline might have gone a bit over our heads at the time). Dirty Dancing came to the stage in Australia in 2004, 17 years after the cinema release. The London launch in 2006 generated £11m in advance ticket sales, a West End record. You could hear the shrieks of expectation all the way to the M25. The stage version was choreographed by Kate Champion, an unlikely gig for a woman best known for working with hard-hitting physical theatre company DV8. It’s a show for people who are already fans, but so what if the audience, much as they do in the Rocky Horror Show, say the lines before the actors do. That’s exactly what they come for. “I carried a watermelon!” “Nobody puts Baby in the corner!” Oh, and that lift, of course. Swoon.
• Currently touring the UK.
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