J-Starz Presents "Vacation"

On Saturday August 21st I was lucky enough to catch what was a pretty interesting dance presentation at the Brolga Theatre in Maryborough. Presented by the J-Starz Academy of Theatrical Dance, Vacationwas an interesting themed selection of various dance styles, which used the loose theme of the audience travelling on an aeroplane to various locations around the globe, to witness these various dance styles. While it might sound more than a little wanky from my fairly bland description, and despite the show having some serious theatrical flaws in it, the central reason for why we were all there - to see a bunch of very talented dancers do their thing - was more than enough to make up for the shortcomings in other areas.

Firstly, let's start off with the big positive, because it is a big one. The dancing, which was to put it mildly really rather stunning. Despite the fact that the entire dance team are made up of primary and high school students, save for the several adults running the group, you'd be forgiven for thinking that at times you were watching some performers a lot older than they really were. There was a definite air of refinement present in the show, which was reflected by a team of dancers who clearly knew what they were doing on the stage floor. The routines were all executed to a high degree of finesse, with some extremely impressive moves included in amongst what one could consider more traditional moves. Overall, the dancing itself did not disappoint at any stage, which I guess for a show all about dance, that is no bad thing.

And it's fair to say that there really was something for everyone here in Vacation, be it traditional styles such as tap and classical, but more contemporary styles present also, like hip hop and funk tap. The group also had a fairly heavy jazz influence as well present, which made for some slightly sultry pieces. It was this variety that really ensured your attention was fixed on the movements during the show, and never once during the actual routines did I honestly ever feel like I was bored. There was always something visually interesting happening on stage. The dancing was paired up with some pretty decent musical choices as well, with the variety of dancing styles being complemented with a wide variety of music choices mixed in as well.

Now, with the positives out of the way, let's get onto a few of the negatives which, while they weren't deal breakers, they did manage to taint the good work being done by the students. And in some ways, it helps to prove that sometimes dancers don't make the best directors.

Firstly, the length of the show, at over 3 hours, was at least an hour too long. No matter how good and varied the dancing was, there's only so much you can watch in a single sitting. "Always leave the audience wanting more" is how the old saying goes. Well, we certainly weren't left wanting more, since I cannot think of anything more the performers could have done. My advice for future shows would be to cull some of the more repetitive elements, and only include the absolute best of the best. Some of the performers appeared on stage more than a dozen times - surely 2-3 times per performer is more than enough?

Secondly, the running time of the show wasn't at all helped by the fact that there was a prolonged blackout between each and every routine. Each blackout went for between 60-90 seconds, and there were over 30 routines, so you do the Maths - that means the show could have easily had between 30 - 45 minutes of its running time slashed just by allowing each routine to flow directly into the next one. Again, this is where not having some of the performers on stage as often as they were would have helped. No need to wait for costume changes et al if the same performers aren't on in consecutive routines. This all ignores the simple fact that theatre is a visual medium, and as such leaving your audience sitting in an auditorium every 3 minutes looking into the inky blackness is never a good idea. It jarred quite a lot, really.

Thirdly, while the Brolga is an excellent venue (I've Directed three major musical productions in that venue), the stage floor was far too big for the needs of this dance group. Performing with the full depth of the stage, with only the cyc and the occasional gobo to perform in front of, felt extremely bland, and the occasional use of a black backdrop curtain in some scenes to halve the depth of the stage demonstrated that this was clearly the way the group should have presented all of their routines. The width was fine, but the depth meant most of the performers spent a huge amount of time too distant from their audience, like little tiny specks way off in the distance.

Fourthly, and this is quite minor, but the group weren't helped by what was a fairly flimsy linking narrative. While I totally got what they were trying to do, the fact is it felt extremely contrived and awkward. Next time, my advice would be to just present the routines, and leave out the attempted theatrics. Better to present us with a random collection of short and snappy dance routines, than to subject us to an epilepsy-inducing strobe light that weakly suggests we're on a plane.

Lastly, and this is even more minor than the previous point, but some of the music editing was a bit harsh. Better use of slow fades or audio effects to cover edit points might have helped the music to more perfectly suit the high quality of dancing that was on offer.

Overall, Vacation was an excellent dance performance that was sadly let down by some less-than-ideal theatrical framing choices, that I suspect a more theatrical-minded Director might have picked up on, and sought to remedy. Still, while it did detract slightly from the overall presentation, the final message is clear - these dancers are great at what they do, and this was a very good vehicle to showcase their talent. If most of these performers don't go on to do something dance-related after Year 12, the world will be a much sadder place indeed.