When I wrote about a new show called “Battle of the Dance” in January, I marveled at the audacity of the undertaking.
What would a prudent investor say if you told him, “I want to spend $10 million on a 950-seat dinner theater in Anaheim. People will flock to see a two-hour spectacular about feisty Spaniards and Irishmen dancing away their differences. I’ll renovate an abandoned Toys ‘”R” Us store and hire 42 performers and a small army of servers and kitchen staff. This is just what a recession-weary Orange County needs right now!”
Perhaps Spanish businessman Andrés Gelabert needed no investors. Maybe he has a big pile of money that would otherwise be used for kindling. But darn it, the man has a dream and a knack for pulling off this kind of extravaganza, at least in Europe: “Battle of the Dance” is modeled after “Son Amar,” a long-running and popular dinner show in Mallorca, Spain. You have to admire his moxie.
After giving the “Battle of the Dance” producers a few months to work out the kinks, I finally went to see the show Wednesday night. (I was told there have indeed been many changes since it opened, and there are more to come: they like to switch up the acts to encourage repeat visits.)
“Battle of the Dance” is a throwback to a different era. Like countless Las Vegas casinos, it offers a big, splashy evening of variety acts in a cavernous venue. This theater has a tiered audience area, just like a Vegas show room, but it’s almost completely lacking in atmosphere and glitzy frou-frou. The $10 million didn’t go for décor, that’s for sure.
There’s plenty of other stuff for naysayers to cluck about.
Like virtually every dinner show I’ve attended, the show is better than the dinner. At “Battle of the Dance” you get a choice of two entrees, mahi-mahi or a slab of chicken, both served with half a baked potato and steamed vegetables. I don’t want to turn this into a food review, but here’s my one piece of culinary advice: go for the chicken and don’t expect a life-changing gastronomic experience.
The show itself is, in a word, eccentric, at least by American standards.
A story is set up in the first scene: it’s 1588, and ships from the defeated Spanish armada blow ashore on the coast of Ireland. Swordfights ensue, but then the two sides decide to work out their differences in a grand dance smack-down. Ah, the power of choreography!
It’s a good enough premise to keep a tale going for two hours. But the show is interspersed with other acts, all of them quite good: a talented young ventriloquist named Kevin Johnson, a decent crooner, Seaon Stylist-Bristol (unfortunately, he’s leaving soon), and a remarkable shadow puppeteer, Sonny Fontana.
They’re enjoyable, but they have nothing to do with the initial storyline. Neither do flashy numbers that reference Bollywood, high-class ballroom dancing and George M. Cohan-style American patriotic strutting.
But if you’re a dance lover, all your quibbles about the show’s shortcomings will quickly disappear. For without a doubt, “Battle of the Dance” offers some of the best flamenco and Spanish dancers you’ll ever see.
The choreography is masterful. It’s provided by Javier Valverde Hidalgo, a renowned flamenco soloist and choreographer who, with his wife, choreographer/dancer Paloma Aznar Mendez, moved from Spain to Garden Grove late last year to help put “Battle of the Dance” together.
Hidalgo is the lead choreographer for the male dancers. He and two other dancers also vie for supremacy with spirited solos that showcase intricate footwork and other feats of virtuosity, all of it delivered with enough verve to power a small city.
Elena Romero Rodriguez, the principal Spanish female soloist, offers similar bursts of showmanship, but her focus is quieter without losing any intensity. Whenever the Spaniards are on stage, the electricity in the room is palpable.
The Irish dancers are almost as impressive; their only disadvantage is their relative inexperience compared with their flamenco counterparts. Soloists Kyle Hatfield and Maggie Darlington are both astounding technicians with lightning-fast feet.
The evening’s climax comes in an extended showdown between the two dance styles that brings all of the dancers on stage. It’s here that you can appreciate Gelabert’s vision and get a glimpse of what “Battle of the Dance” could be in a perfected form: a celebration of two proud and fascinating folk-dance traditions.
Sure, there’s a lot of cheese to the evening – and not all of it sits on that baked potato in front of you. But with dancing of this caliber, who cares?
Contact the writer: 714-796-7979 or phodgins@ocregister.com