Stage: Burn the Floor

Longacre Theatre

New York

(212) 239-6200

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“The ballroom dancing extravaganza Burn the Floor is every bit as flashy and tacky as you would expect,” said Charles Isherwood in The New York Times. This country, it so happens, is in the middle of a bit of a dance craze thanks to the “huge popularity” of television dance competitions and viral videos like that one of “the wedding party boogying down the aisle.” Burn the Floor—choreographed by Jason Gilkison, of So You Think You Can Dance, and featuring lead dancers Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Karina Smirnoff, of Dancing With the Stars fame—certainly has the pedigree to please the dance-obsessed masses. But for the Broadway set, two hours of surprisingly tepid dance, paired with plenty of “look-Ma-I’m-smoldering glares,” won’t likely kindle more than a yawn.

The show is clearly “aiming for nonstop steaminess,” said Brian Scott Lipton in Theatermania.com. Routine upon routine features “blatantly erotic movements” performed by supremely fit dancers, each “willing to bare much of their bodies” in service of the dance. “Yet somehow true sensuality rarely emerges” from any of these numbers. There’s also an ever-present spray-on-tan sexuality that makes Burn the Floor seem strangely sanitized. What does come through is efficiency. Cha-chas, rumbas, and waltzes are all “endlessly proficient” yet devoid of heat. Occasionally, Gilkison sends the dancers out into the aisle, a “crowd-pleasing” move that leads to some “hooting and hollering. But there’s little else here to make audiences “feel the burn.”

Not surprisingly, Chmerkovskiy and Smirnoff steal the show, said Michael Kuchwara in the Associated Press. A real-life couple with genuine chemistry, “he possesses a swagger and a smile that borders on a boyish sneer,” while she dances with “wild abandon.” As they grind their way through the fox trot, the tango, and the steamy pasodoble, the pair add some much-needed spice. A scattering of other performances, notably by dancers Sasha Farber and Petra Murgatroyd, also add flavor to the proceedings. But the majority of the show simply lacks “character.” For that I blame Gilkison. “Unlike theater greats such as Bob Fosse or Jerome Robbins,” he “brings no distinct style to his dance creations.” Or maybe it’s that this popular style of ballroom dancing and Broadway just make awkward partners.