L.A. dance group Groovaloos heading to off-Broadway
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The Los Angeles-based dance group known as the Groovaloos is moving up in the world.
Producers have announced that the Groovaloos will play off-Broadway at the Union Square Theatre for a limited run set to begin Dec. 8. The show, which is titled ‘Groovaloo,’ is said to be a revised version of the production that ran at the Joyce Theater in New York earlier this fall.
‘Groovaloo,’ which combines street dance, hip-hop and even aspects of poetry, began its life in L.A. around 2003 and has since been performed throughout Southern California in various versions. More recently, the Groovaloo dancers were the winners of NBC’s reality competition show ‘Superstars of Dance.’
In a review of the troupe’s stage show at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in 2008, a Times critic wrote: ‘For street-dance enthusiasts and novices alike, the thrill of ‘Groovaloo’ comes from seeing what the human body is capable of doing. Each dancer’s torso, arms and legs move in so many directions, all at once, that rules of anatomy seem to be broken.’
The off-Broadway engagement is scheduled to run through Jan. 3 and will feature a cast of 18 performers.
‘Groovaloo’ is created by Bradley Rapier and Danny Cistone, working in collaboration with the Groovaloos. The show will be directed by Cistone. In an interview with Dance Magazine, Rapier said: “Groovaloos is a family in the way it happened. We’ve never had auditions.”
He added: ‘When I got to L.A., I wanted people to see the beauty I saw in street dance... Dancers stuck around and, after a time, I would get into what that person was about -- their character, integrity, funniness, and their uniqueness. It wasn’t about talent only. That’s when it became Groovaloos.”
-- David Ng
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