Word: ballroom
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...negotiators had hit the worst impasse since the start of deliberations on April 3, talks were on the brink of collapse. Wait! There's a settlement! (Well, almost...) Finally, at 3:30 p.m. last Friday, a chorus of state attorneys general gathered around a microphone in the ANA's ballroom to congratulate themselves on what Mississippi's Michael Moore called "the most historic public-health achievement in history...
...Shall We Dance?, which Miramax Films has cannily positioned as successor to its easygoing humanist hits Like Water for Chocolate and Il Postino. Masayuki Suo's romantic comedy, the winner of 13 Japanese Academy Awards, at times teeters dangerously close to the excesses of another Miramax crowd pleaser, Strictly Ballroom. The film has such a weakness for the easy incongruity (short men dancing with tall women--isn't that hilarious?) that it could almost be Australian. But Shall We Dance? also has an emotional gravity; it is grounded in a middle-aged man's nagging belief that...
Thus begins a chaste affair of the feet. Sugiyama takes ballroom classes at which he is pathetically inept, and it is ages before his dream girl agrees to help him (in a lovely montage scored to the Drifters' Save the Last Dance for Me). As he practices his steps--at his desk, in the subway, under a bridge in the mild rain --the zombie is revived. "Every day I feel so alive," he says. "Even being tired feels great." His rejuvenation lasts one act too many, but it has a satisfying payoff, to the tune of guess-which Rodgers...
...participate in these activities. Some may just see it as a place to live, some may even despise it and call it a "freak-zone," but the events will go on. People will still cavort around in drag; they will continue to whip their neighbors on Halloween; they will ballroom dance to the Bach Society Orchestra's drunken waltz music; they will eat chocolate penises...
Another slightly offbeat characteristic of the ballet was the music. Prokofiev's three-act score of "Cinderella" fits some of the moods on-stage quite well, from lilting with the dancers' feet to thundering with the characters' emotions. But again, the music during the ballroom scene leaned more towards cruel sophistication than lighthearted dancing. Also, as Cinderella and the Prince embrace after finally reuniting, the horns and violins wail a mournful melody rather than a romantic one. This is not to say that Prokofiev's music is poor-far from that. But for a fairy tale with a happy ending...