Shaping Sound's Show: It's All About the Dancers

June 17, 2013


(L to R) Shaping Sound’s Teddy Forance, Kyle Robinson, Nick Lazzarini and Travis Wall, photographed for “Dance Spirit” by Joe Toreno

Last night, the DS staff got all gussied up and headed to the Beacon Theater for Shaping Sound‘s That’s Where I’ll Be Waiting. So did pretty much everyone else in NYC.

No, but really: The crowd at this show, which was the last stop on the company’s month-long tour, was incredible. Along with mainstream dance fans like Jesse Tyler Ferguson (a.k.a. the best “So You Think You Can Dance” judge of all time), there were a host of familiar dancers and choreographers milling through the lobby of the Beacon. Joey Dowling! Kenny Wormald! Dana Wilson! Ida Saki! Catherine Hurlin! It was like a reunion for all the dance world’s cool kids.

Not that that’s surprising. The members of Shaping Sound are some of the most exciting people on the commercial scene, after all—and definitely not less famous since their turn on the reality show “All the Right Moves.” Almost every Shaping Sound dancer is a dance celebrity, and the people most prominently featured in That’s Where I’ll Be WaitingTravis Wall, Nick Lazzarini, Teddy Forance and Kyle Robinson, who also created and choreographed the show—have become legit stars. More celebrities onstage = more celebrities in the audience (and also = more opportunities for us lesser non-celebrities to totally freak out because Jesse Tyler Ferguson is sitting one seat away from us, eee!).

The Shaping Sound foursome were smart about how they presented their well-known team, too. That’s Where I’ll Be Waiting gives each dancer a specific character—i.e., “The Trouble” (Alexa Anderson), “The Temptress” (Channing Cooke), etc—and at least a few moments in the spotlight. While the piece is threaded through with a love-triangle dream-story involving Travis, Teddy and Jaimie Goodwin, it’s really driven by all the strong personalities onstage—personalities the audience already knows and loves.

Does that always work? Well, not quite. (Frankly, I’m still not sure why Chelsea Thedinga is “The Being.”) Could I watch Nick, a.k.a. “The Wayward,” do his flamboyantly fabulous David-Bowie-in-Labyrinth-meets-Herr-Drosselmeyer act (which is really just Nick being Nick) in his leather cape-vest alllll night? Oh, totally. And so could the rest of that star-studded crowd, which went standing-o bonkers for the entire cast at the curtain call. Congrats, guys!