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Tuesday, September 6, 2011

The 2011 Rocky Awards

By Merilyn Jackson

  This year's Rocky Awards, presented Monday night by the previous year’s winners to other dancers of their choice, moved at such a clip they lasted a mere hour and a quarter.

  The host, as in recent years, was the inimitable Jaamil Kosoko, in spanking white attire (well, it was Labor Day), blonde wig, and gorgeous feather ruff. The formal look belied his laconic demeanor as he moved the show along with the assistance of Melanie Stewart, in a slinky blue sheath.  The first of the 2011 awards (wooden shoe molds) was given to Leah Stein by Gabrielle Revlock.

   In amongst subsequent presentations, several entertainments had been devised for our amusement. Few other cities can boast the range of talented people it takes to pull these little bagatelles together, but between our dance and theater folk, we’re never in want.

  Germaine Ingram, who later received a Rocky, wowed us not only with her get-down tapping, but with sultry vocal snippets of "Wild Is the Wind." Michele Tantoco and Sean Roswell danced Revlock’s snaky yoga dance. Jumatatu Poe brought his crew up for a peek at his spanking new airline-themed work-in-progress.

  Martha Graham Cracker (Dito van Reigersberg in a pink-fringed sheath) and a mustachioed Nicole Canuso spat, split and reappeared later in Anna Drozdowski's tribute tango to the tech guys of the dance community, including techno-couples Jorge and Niki Cousineau and Amanda Miller (whose cross ankle steps were perfect) and Tobin Rothlein. 

  The newly refurbished ballroom upstairs at the RUBA Club Studios, with its cozy proscenium stage, was the best spot ever for these hijinks. Cabaret shows are running there every night around 11 p.m. throughout the Live Arts Festival/Philly Fringe, and management hopes to extend performances year-round. 

RUBA Club Studios, 418 Green St.
Posted by Merilyn Jackson @ 9:53 AM  Permalink | 3 comments
Comments   
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 12:15 PM, 09/06/2011
    You use the word "spanking" (gratuitously) twice in a 286 word piece. Is there something you'd like to share?
    — BulletinBoy
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 2:35 PM, 09/06/2011
    Heh, heh, It was appropriate in two different ways. You had to be there. You don't like spanking?
    — merilynjj
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 2:54 PM, 09/06/2011
    Oh, yes BulletinBoy thanks for the word count. I see you're not delivering anymore...
    — merilynjj


3 comments
About Philly Stage
Howard Shapiro reviews and writes about theater for The Inquirer, and has been on staff since 1970. He's had many posts at the newspaper, including cultural arts editor and editor of the Weekend section. He's twice been the editor of the Travel section, for which he writes frequently. He began writing theater criticism a decade ago, and has been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard, an Internews fellow in Greece, and a fellow at the National Endowment for the Arts' Journalism Institutue in Theater and Musical Theater, where Robert Brustein was among his mentors. He teaches arts criticism and travel writing at Temple University, and is Broadway critic for the NPR-affliated stations of the Classical Network.


Toby Zinman's night job since 2006 is theater critic for the Inquirer. She also is a contributing writer for Variety and American Theatre magazine. Her day job: Prize-winning prof at UArts, author of four books about four playwrights (Rabe, McNally, Miller, Albee), and doer of scholarly deeds (winner of five NEH grants, Fulbright lecturer at Tel Aviv University, visiting professor in China). Her 'weekend' job as a travel writer provides adventure: dogsledding in the Yukon, ziplining in Belize, walking coast-to-coast across England, and cowboying in the Australian Outback.


Wendy Rosenfield has been writing freelance features and theater reviews for The Inquirer since 2006. She was theater critic for the Philadelphia Weekly from 1995 to 2001, after which she enjoyed a five-year baby-raising sabbatical. She also writes the ArtsJournal blog Drama Queen. She was 2009 and 2010 Guest Critic for the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival's Region II National Critics Institute, a 2008 NEA Fellow in Theater and Musical Theater, and a participant in the Bennington Writer's Workshop. A graduate of Bennington College, she is inching toward a Master's degree in Liberal Arts at the University of Pennsylvania. She also is a fiction writer, was proofreader to a swami, publications editor for the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and a Brownie Girl Scout troop leader.

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