Taps' 'MetallOrgy': a case of style over substance

With a first half that begins with Adam Ant's "Goody Two Shoes" and ends with Madonna's "Hanky Panky," Taps's new show is more frank than usual about its sexy undertones. (Even if there weren't plenty of good dancing to like, you'd have to admire the title: this weekend's show, a follower of "Break the Floor," "Got Metal," and others, is "MetallOrgy.") Yet the show runs into trouble when it tries to use sex appeal—or any other overt emotional effect—to accomplish reactions that should be due to tap dancing alone. As always, Taps is at its best when it concentrates on inventive well-executed steps, without kitsch or style layered on top.

There's plenty of talent with which to achieve this success: the group is blessed with a band of superb (mostly senior) dancers, many of whom have been with the group since its founding, whose assurance and camaraderie give their sterling technique an extra spark.

This is particularly evident in "Ms. Lollipop," in which three women—Kelly Burns, BK '99, Katie Daly, BR '99, and Melissa Tepe, SY '99—put themselves through a jointly-choreographed, half-improvised romp. They dance in perfect harmony through long stretches of joint tapping, and then step back to allow each dancer her own solo, in which the three test all sorts of rhythmic and technical limits. Near the end, their pleasure at dancing together gives the impression that they could go on forever.

Other groups of dancers are just as successful. In an unaccompanied piece choreographed by Jimmy Tate, eight dancers move through simple but effective patterns that are grounded, earthy, and rhythmically demanding; Tepe stands out again, as does Larra Pleasant, DC '00, and Nambi Gardner, SM '01. In Pleasant's choreography to "Goody Two Shoes," a hint of a narrative becomes part of interesting, crisply executed shapes. The piece ends as it began, without being cute about it. Gaylynn Burroughs, CC '99, leads an excellent cast. In a dance to the Pizzicato 5 (whose music makes bizarre sense in this context), Carina York has created an equally shapely piece, playful yet knowing. Gardner's effort, set to Charles Mingus' "Open Letter to Duke," has plenty of equally good ideas, but lacks a coherence that would string them together logically. In one legato passage, though, this piece achieves slow, lyrical, and effective tap dancing—a rare and impressive variety of mood

Other dances look instead to half-acted ideas for substance. Despite red-and-black costumes and sexy pouts, the ensemble in the "Hanky Panky" ensemble doesn't have much that's interesting or sexy to do. We don't believe the dancers' erotic perversity, which seems like so much boredom.

Jason Moff, DC '99, so impressive elsewhere for his dancing, is less successful in his choreography to Björk's "Immature," which pins too much hope on a few clichéd gestures. To be fair, the idea is more than challenging: there's probably a reason not much tap dancing is done to Björk.

Moff's swing trio, in which he and Jason DiPinto, TC '01, compete for the pleasure of dancing with Pleasant, has more potential: with a little more time, the awe-inspiring lifts will seem less like work and more like fun, and the latent chemistry between these two pairs of dancers will come through.

The final piece, which Moff and Burroughs choreographed to "Show Me How to Do It," does the near-impossible: it breathes life into the Yale convention of the "group dance" to finish off these mosaically-constructed shows. Usually, such pieces look indulgent and thrown-together, but Moff and Burroughs manage to find an ingenious structure that gives everyone a part—with Tepe tapping happily through it all.

So style's not the problem; the show just needs some tapped-out substance, too. A large part of this impression, I'm sure, comes from the group's entre'acte skits, which are often silly and awkwardly done. I know there's a general consensus among Yale performance groups that every show has to have these vaudeville bits, but this is a plea for Taps to be thefirst ones to buck the trend. They're so much more witty—and stylish, and sexy—when they are dancing.

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