I wrote about LOS on Dec. 7th and this Sunday, Feb. 7, we took our four-year-old to see their Gershwin show; our daughter's dolls were dancing throughout the performance. I particularly liked that they included Gershwin in this series, breaking down some people's preconceived ideas of what "classical" music is. This performance included selections of many different Gershwin works, from Porgy and Bess to Walking the Dog, a delightful instrumental from the movie Shall We Dance (1937) played while Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were walking their dogs on a ship from Europe to America, and Let's Call the Whole Thing Off, from the same film.
Of course the music reminded me of Balanchine's wonderful ballet to Gershwin music, Who Cares, and this performance included some excellent tap and jazz dancing by Samantha Gardner, Avery Royal and Jessica Wu, with choreography by Steven Cardona. There was also some marvelous piano playing --especially in Rhapsody in Blue -- by William Wolfram and some sultry singing by Jennifer Fouche.
Once again LOS kept the hokiness to a minimum -- the set was a supper club -- and added some interesting didactic elements, including a short video of the workers at a piano factory putting the pianos together.
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