french mime

DANCE REVIEW Myron Johnson's troupe moves from can-can to techno in an energetic homage to all things French. But is it truly risqué or just plain raunchy?

By Camille Lefevre, Special to the Star Tribune

Last update: October 26, 2007 � 8:21 PM


This 'Richard III' restores faith in the Bard
Theater review: Twist on 'Frankenstein' needs jolt
Twenty years ago, when Myron Johnson's Ballet of the Dolls presented cabaret shows in cramped, shadowy venues around town, they were an underground sensation full of such titillating transgressions as cross-dressing vamps and S&M allusions. So what's a 21st-century public, inured to the sexual imagery and escapades that constitutes entertainment these days, to make of the Dolls' newest show, a French cabaret called "Le Chat Noir," at the spacious Ritz Theater?
This evening-length work, much of it performed in dim light thick with theatrical fog, seems mostly a collection of tropes and clichés.

There's a raucous can-can, replete with zany costumes. Johnson channels Marcel Marceau, while his cohorts mime tug-of-war and hands pressed against an invisible window. The show includes a slap-and-leather vignette, a mock Romeo and Juliet death scene, same-sex duets and suggestive threesomes.

When a nude Robert Skafte is doused with champagne and bound with a pink sash, the scene is simply bizarre. When Stephanie Fellner sheds her feathery diva gown in a topless turn, she resembles a lithe Art Deco nymph gloriously come to life, rather than a boisterous Josephine Baker.

In this show, Johnson largely eschews his usual modus operandi: letting song lyrics drive the choreography and tell the dance's story. Act One uses music by Erik Satie as interpreted by Jacques Loussier, leaving Johnson with lots of mood and little narrative impetus to work with. An amalgam of gesture and mime, ballet and ballroom, jazz, folk and club dance is the result.

Act Two has more of a beat, as French techno music and lyrics from the likes of the Pointer Sisters rev the dancers into high gear. Throughout the show, the Dolls undertake their escapades with unabashed verve, good humor and bare-it-all nonchalance.

But while the French cabaret of Johnson's imagination has a certain joie de vivre, it's difficult not to feel laissez- faire about this version.

Camille LeFevre is a Twin Cities dance critic.