Toto Review – A Cheeky Tribute to Ballet Containing Swan Lake Disco and Dirty Dancing Elevator | Dance

WAs the curtain falls here in East London, there’s another opening night on the other side of town: fans gathering to worship the late dance theater icon Pina Bausch, whose theater Sweet Mambo is presenting in Sadler’s Wells. While on this stage, six men transmit Bausch’s choreography and distinctive style, distorting the clichés. This does not mean that everyone in the audience will know the reference. If you’re not a regular dance-goer, you might just see a group of men wearing long, flowing gowns walking around the stage with their long wigs down. But still entertaining.

After all, a lot of tutu is about sparking joy through silly dancing and silly costumes. The all-male comedy dance company Chicos Mambo has been performing this show for more than a decade, and is directed by French choreographer Philippe Lavie, and seems to please camp audiences. The costumes sure are fun: puffy flamingo-colored tutu pants, like a cross between a powder puff and a frilly toilet paper cover; Vegetable-like caps (why? why not!).

Just like another all-male band, the Trocks, much of the material comes from a gently satirical but deep love of dance. The parrots in Swan Lake become stupid ducks in scruffy costumes, adding a bit of disco to Tchaikovsky. You’ve got some Sleeping Beauty, and some serious European contemporary dancing played by the dancers’ breath (bad breath, it turns out, that’s the joke). There’s a skit about dirty dancing, complete with Swayze’s swiveling buttocks, tickling armpits, and yes, an elevator.

There are some weird surprises too. The toto is a study in contrasts – Bach’s Goldberg Variations mixed with the haka, for example. The dancers get a few laughs from limping men in pointe shoes, but then Vincenzo Veneruso dances a rather beautiful solo on pointe. There’s a scene with the six men as diapered babies, swaying, picking their noses and wiggling their butts to the tune of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. (Because it’s some kind of fertility ritual? Or just because it’s the most random and improbable thing you could set to that legendary music?)

It’s done in an entertaining way, clever in some parts, and nonsense in others; They are tightly designed. But you find yourself wondering, is there more to this joke? Then again, a few rows in front, a kid of maybe seven or eight (who I assume has never heard of Pina Bausch before) is in absolute hysterics from beginning to end.