CHOOSE A DANCE AND THEN ENJOY

Choose your dance. Then sit back and enjoy!

Enter the Loft Theatre at Q, where a beautiful Wurlitzer jukebox, complete with moving bubbles and grandiose splendour, sits in the corner - though it doesn't appear to play the music for the show. This is the key object in The Pineapple Jukebox Dance Show, and it provides a reference point for the structure of the show, directed and choreographed by Julie Anterrieu, a French choreographer of commercial dance routines who shows an exuberance and passion for dance.

The show is not immediately identifiable as belonging to the Fringe. It looks and feels like corporate entertainment, with 18 dance numbers in an array of commercial styles listed on the programme contained in the envelope you are given on entry. Nine lucky audience members receive a coin with a number. If you are one of them, you get to select a dance from the programme, and the number on the coin is the order in which your dance will be performed.

Proceedings are kept rolling  along by embellished repartee from foxy MC Phlossy Roxx, and although the pace is a little tentative, the audience quickly grasps the concept at play. Our hostess provides chitchat and games between items, with assistance from audience volunteers to fill in the time needed for costume changes. 

The first work turns out to be a lyrical solo titled America, danced by the voluptuous Nicole de Malmanche, in a white flowing frock like something Marilyn Monroe might have worn (costume designs by Coco Columbine and Greta Garment) to music by Lana Del Rey. This  shows off an easy feel for the choreographic style,  some pretty technique and an overt pleasure in performing, hallmarks which continue to be exhibited by all ten dancers throughout the medley of dance styles.

Highlights include two truly genuinely authentic French styled numbers -- a 1960s go-go trio, Gogo-YeYe, to music by April March, and the disco dance Cloclo Medley, with 6 dancers performing to a mashup of four French pop songs by Claude Francois. Julie Anterrieu shines as a performer in both of these.

Also guaranteed to be a highlight is the guest performance of the evening, on this occasion the popping duo Balancing Act, Lawrence and Mike who specialise in a joyous human dialogue comprised of spinning and moving in and out of sync with one another.

The final number, a chair routine to a classic tune by Gerry Rafferty, spins out a line that runs through my mind as I am leaving: “ I've a feeling that something aint right”. On pondering this refrain, I realise that what could be seen as an uneasy meld of mainstream dance, set in the avant garde space of a Fringe Festival becomes just that, not quite right, not quite Fringe, yet decidedly thought provoking all the same.

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