Word: disco
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Pretty much since then, black artists who wanted to play rock 'n' roll--as opposed to pop, or doo-wop, or soul music, or funk, or disco, or rap--have had a hard time getting a hearing from the music industry, which, thanks to its perceived marketing needs, tends to pigeonhole artists in "black" and "white" slots. The irony, of course, is that while white artists like the Rolling Stones are exalted for their borrowings from black music, black artists who try to reclaim the now predominantly white classic-rock tradition are often met with industry indifference, if not hostility...
...disco number's respectable singing and choreography could well have closed the show, except that the plot had failed to rumble to its so-close-you-could-taste-it end. Instead, the audience had to sit through an overblown monologue by a minor character and a boring ballet (featuring a busty, less-than-agile camel) that turned into the Pudding's usual Rockettish finale. Throughout this ordeal, all I could do was shake my head...
...Twilight of the Golds and Jeffrey, doesn't disappoint in the multi-period aspect of the musical. The Whore's (Carol Stearns) frock, inspired by Toulouse-Lautrec drawings, is surprisingly faithful to the turn of the century seaside bordello aesthetic. Outfits from the '70s shimmer hilariously under a real disco ball, and are, of course, heavy on the polyester and pant leg width. The brainless visual humor some of the costuming is a welcome relief from the show's tedious, formulaic development--made more tedious by the lack of intermission...
Instead, "Othello" features an eclectic gathering of horrible effects. Othello first enters from beneath an electronic Bud Lite sign. The sound, though well-prepared, goes sour when whimsical musical moments and a garish announcement of the Venetian victory accompanied by disco lay waste to Shakespeare's play. Two guards, listed as "Mechanicals" in the program, wear expressionless masks, and the Herald speaks his lines in a deliberate monotone. Iago's deception of Othello occurs before a projection of Magritte's painting, "The Wind and the Song," and, before the first intermission, an actor walks onto the stage with a sign...
What they see can be eye catching. The Thai-Chinese-British violinist who goes by the name Vanessa-Mae (full name: Vanessa-Mae Vanakorn Nicholson) has a new album, The Violin Player, climbing up the worldwide pop charts on the strength of her disco-driven version of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. A photo on the single from the album features the slim, pretty teen fiddling away while standing in the Mediterranean in a soaking-wet see-through white shift. "If as a result of this, people see the violin as a fresh, trendy, up-to-date...