 |
|
| Newspaper Articles Here you will find numerous articles collected regarding Jeff and his ongoing career as an accomplished dancer, singer and actor. If you have any clippings you'd like to add, please e-mail me. |
| Joyful dance On Tap at our YPT BOB PENNINGTON A distinguished American director was telling me this week of his need for a great male dancer who could also act. One possibility, he said, for a projected Broadway show was Wayne Sleep, the Royal Ballet veteran who found broader fame and fortune in two Lloyd Webber originals, the London productions of Cats and Song & Dance. Having seen both, I have immense admiration for Sleep. But why go to England, I asked, when Jeff Hyslop, another of the world's most dynamic dancers, was again showing his diverse talents to Toronto in On Tap, at the Young People's Theatre. The director has promised to attend during the show's run here (to Nov.4). Hyslop, I predict, would enthrall him. I am equally certain he will be enthused by this artistically brilliant musical history of tap dancing's evolution. A humdinger of a family musical was the capsule verdict when On Tap workshopped at the Adelaide Court Theatre last October under somewhat spartan conditions. It was a little like mounting a Rolls Royce engine on a utility truck. Now the same engine is powering, if not a RR body, at least that of a sleekly fashionable limousine. Phillip Silver's set, Frances Dafoe's costumes and Ron Snippe's lighting enhance a top trio of performers. Scott Smith, the show's conceiver, and Lesley Ballantyne, who joined Smith and Hyslop in the choreographic inspiration, are both fine hoofers, well able to pace themselves to a second act of 10/10ths endeavor. Return to Newspaper Articles Return Home |
| Smith has the rugged looks of a young Gene Kelly and much of the old maestro's no-nonsense approach to the terpsichorean art. This was best seen in his sparkling St. Patrick's Day solo. Ballantyne is also a remarkable trouper, moving from early gentility in showing the late emergence of women in non-classical dance, to a splen-didly sexy Shaking The Blues Away. If they were somewhat overshadowed by their illustrious partner throughout it was not by any conscious effort of Hyslop to upstage or overwhelm by his sustained excellence. There is an inherent balletic grace in this self-effacing artist, as evident in his small subtleties of style as in the more obvious feats of athleticism. Nobody would appreciate this more than Vanessa Harwood and Nadia Potts, ballerinas from our national company, who joined an opening night audience in a standing ovation for the trio. And nowhere was Hyslop range seen to greater advantage than in combining ballet and tap in a strangely effective classical version of Colonel Bogey. Fondly remembered, too, was his Fred and Gingeresque A Train dance with Ballantyne. The trio's salute to A Grand Old Flag and 42nd Street were other numbers bringing roars of appreciation. The flaws were easily correctable. Codfish Ball did not fit the dance format. Flapperish squeals were fine as Ms. B. introduced I Want To Be Happy. They should be greatly reduced, however, if not eliminated, when she sings a song so infectiously joyous that you want to tap dance all the way home. On Tap also rejoiced in much good humor, as when the Ballantyne belle donned a male jacket to ask: "Do you really think I can be a boy?" Parried musical director Stephen Woodjetts: "Honey, if I can do it anyone can.� |
 |
| ON TAP -Scott Smith, Lesley Ballantyne, and Jeff Hyslop star. |
 |
|
|
|
|
|