CerritosInk

Reviews of shows from the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts and other local venues published by the Los Cerritos Community News. The writer and paper are in their twentieth year of covering these events.

My Photo
Name:
Location: Fear City, Ca., United States

"My name is Addison DeWitt. My native habitat is the theater. In it I toil not, neither do I spin. I am a critic and commentator. I am essential to the theatre - as ants to a picnic, as the boll weevil to a cotton field." George Sanders in "All About Eve"

Sunday, December 29, 2013

Broadway on Ice December 28, 2013




          Broadway on Ice at Cerritos: Elegantly Cool

                 By Glen Creason

     It might seem daunting to put a dozen supremely athletic artists on skates gliding at top speed across an area as small as the Performing Arts stage. Yet, the superb show “Broadway on Ice” that visited over the weekend just made you forget everything except these graceful and fearless artists and the perfectly appropriate Broadway music that inspired the dozens of segments that made up this remarkable evening. This is a show created by people who obviously love the art form and make great demands on the performers who meet the challenge with great big smiles on their beautiful young faces. There is not a skater on the ice (that in itself is astounding if you have attended shows at the center) who is not an accomplished performer. Just on the level of speed and precision of the choreography this show demands plenty of bold moves that were met with aplomb and joyful confidence by this excellent troupe. This type of entertainment takes plenty of dedication and rehearsal which “Broadway on Ice” must have done before hitting the road, as a matter of face, hitting the road with this show for the last nine years.  They last stopped here in the beginning with Dorothy Hamill and this time it was gold-medal Olympian Ekaterina Gordeeva who alone made this a night to remember. Like ice skating royalty Ms. Gordeeva was not on the ice a lot but when she appeared she lit up the stage, albeit a frozen stage.
     However, the show is not all ice and glittering costumes. It is also terrific singers standing on ice and hitting all the notes of great Broadway songs. The versatile and strong baritone of Davis Gaines provided fine musical moments in showstoppers like “This Is the Moment,” “Bring Him Home,” “Old Man River,” and a wonderful “Music of the Night” with a solo skater providing a gorgeous physical manifestation of the song behind him. Soprano Ira Lauren shone on “Somewhere,” “Wishing You Were Somehow Here With Me,” and in a beautiful duet of “All I Ask of You” that she and Gaines just nailed. While much of the music was canned the Gershwin segment with pianist Lincoln Mayorga was exceptional made sensational by accompanying skating by Yebin Mok. It would be shame not to mention the truly marvelous skaters and there were many who performed brilliantly including the opening solo by Angela Vandermissen, the vigorous athleticism of Danny Clausen and Aaron Gillespie, the perfect harmony of Jonathon Poitras and Elizabeth Putnam and the cool precision of Annie Laurie. Still, the spectacular skating of Marc-Oliviere Bosse and the really breathtaking routines of Kim Navarro with Brent Bommentre made for truly sublime moments on the ice. 

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home