My Funny Valentine: This Must Be Love
Paramount Theatre, Feb. 15
Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” may be music’s most successful mating call, those first four notes — wah-wuh-wah-waaaaaaah — like a crooked-finger invitation to the bedroom. So when it came time to perform the Song for Getting It Awn at My Funny Valentine, Tapestry’s love-struck evening of dance, the mood shifted — the lights dimmed, the fog swirled, and I’ll be honest: I’m not sure what happened next. In the hands (and limber bodies) of dancers Poet Powell, Andrea Comola, and Morgan Hulen, the song became a sultry, spectacular roundelay: legs over head over heels over legs over, ugh, I give up. One moment the lovely Comola was floating overhead in some elegant contortion, the next she was on the ground, rolling atop her male partners. Nothing was sexier than the number’s seeming effortlessness. Jason Janas’ tap dancing, on the other hand, is the picture of hard work. As displayed in his thrilling tap solo to Dr. John’s “Right Place, Wrong Time,” Janas is every ounce the showstopper, who telegraphs each click and clatter to the back of the rafters — arms reeling, body swooping, thousand-watt smile — and the audience responds in kind. With choreography by co-founder Deirdre Strand, Artistic Director Acia Gray, Caroline Sutton-Clarke, and guest artist Bill Evans, the evening’s only real misstep was the costumes: unflattering red underwear, a playful literalization of the seduction onstage. But as these talented dancers took the stage one by one to cover up with black dresses and pants, the members still left wearing red underwear stole my focus and my sympathy — I couldn’t wait to see them clothed. It was a bump in an otherwise fine romance.
This article appears in February 21 • 2003.