5 Things About the Olympics

I originally intended on live blogging much of the Olympics, but alas, I have not updated this blog since November, so the live blogging didn't so much happen. However, I figured I would consolidate some of my thoughts here, list-style.

1. The Opening Ceremony. This is arguably the best television event in any Olympic year. It's better than the Oscars and the Super Bowl combined, and trumps any Lifetime movie by far. The pageantry! The human interest stories! The choreography! (Was that a Mia Michaels routine I spotted??) The celebrities I never knew were Canadian! The geography lessons from Bob Costas! I love all of it. While the Beijing Opening Ceremonies were an exercise in patience, ADD and Busby Berkely-esque mega-choreography, Vancouver toned it down slightly without losing its awe-inspiring look. I loved the tap dancers and the modern routine which I never remembered to look up, but made me wonder if Mia Michaels had anything to do with it. KD Lang, Sarah McLachlan and Donald Sutherland all turned in sublime performances, though Bryan Adams was slightly underwhelming.

2. The NBC anchors, commentators, and broadcast in general. As has been said ad-nauseum, boo on the tape delaying. Of any kind. Vancouver is in the same time zone as a third of the United States, so there is no reason why everything shouldn't be shown live. If you want to package it all later for the working stiffs among us who can only watch in the evening, that's fine. But at least give us the option of also watching the event live, so that we don't have to find out who won by accidentally opening a web browser in the middle of the day.

However, yay for silly commentators and some awesome editing and B roll. Being an ex-TV-production-assistant, I can just imagine that it must take all 2 years in between Olympics to plan the production logistics of the next one. That is a lot of cameras, interviews, B roll, and editors. Admittedly, my favorite things about watching the Olympics are the silly human interest stories, the medal ceremonies, and Mary Carillo traipsing around with polar bears for no apparent reason other than burning NBC's money. I love it all.

The combination of the skiing crashes, the short track controversies, the figure skating eating disorders, the triumph over adversity through sport stories, and the celebratory nature of the Olympics adds up to more excitement than The Amazing Race, and more tears than Extreme Makeover Home Edition.

Plus, what would the world be without Bob Costas' bad hair and silly puns, Scott Hamilton's pure passion for figure skating, and Mary Carillo's riding boots (seriously, how many pairs of those does she have)?

3. Johnny Weir. I love Johnny Weir so much, I'm about to get on the internet and join his fan club, who call themselves Johnny's Angels. First of all, he's one of Kathy Griffin's gays. That should be enough to love him, but I'll go on. This guy is a true performer, and he loves figure skating for all the right reasons - the fashion, the showiness, the performance art, and the hearts and flowers he receives from his fans. Unfortunately, those aren't the reasons most of the competitors cite for loving figure skating, which puts Johnny usually at the bottom of the ranks. He should have been a Broadway star, where there are no judges who care how "flamboyant" you are, which seems to be, along with "eccentric," figure skating's code for "gay." The fact that a sport like figure skating even needs a code word for gay boggles me, but sure. What puzzles even more, though, is that this man has done nothing to deserve those descriptions, other than the sole fact that he is a figure skater. What sets him aside from the others, I really don't know.

He also has a reality show currently airing on the Sundance Channel called "Be Good Johnny Weir." It puts into words all of the puzzlement we all feel when we hear how the figure skating community treats Johnny. Check it out, it's awesome.

4. Ice Dancing. Admittedly, I started watching ice dancing going, "what the?" It looks nothing like figure skating, and nothing like dancing. And... ok, now they're just making up stuff. Twizzles? That's not a dance step! But, as the competition went on, and the Russians got tripped up in their Leiderhosen or whatever, and the Canadians soared toward the gold medal, I got more and more hooked. When Tracy Wilson first described the free dance as something that only required the skaters to, uh, have some steps and some rhythm, I thought, "oh, come on. Even So You Think You Can Dance has more requirements than that!" But again, the medal winners actually came through on some awesome choreography and engaging music, and by the end, I was totally on board. Plus, I love it when the Canadians win, and they were so proud and teary eyed... I only wished I had a Canadian TV feed so that I could hear Jamie Sale and David Pelletier's commentary. Also, Tessa Virtue is just about the best name ever.

5. Team Canada! I just love it when they win... they never won a gold on home turf, and now they have what? 7? 8? It's just so heartwarming, the Canadian anthem is so fun, and I know that somehow they can turn all of this into fodder for Robin on How I Met Your Mother.

Honorable mentions go to short track speed skating for how ridiculously unfair it is that people can win a gold simply because somebody else confused it for roller derby; the ridiculous attractiveness of the US ski team and the Australian snowboarders; skate-bot Evan Lysacek for choosing a talented publicist; and ski and snowboard cross for how much fun it is to watch people fall down.

Not so honorable mentions go to the Korean short track speed skaters for repeatedly mistaking their sport for roller derby and losing out on the gold medal; Evgeny Plushenko for choosing a terrible publicist; and Julia Mancuso for her poor sportsmanship and whininess when teammate Lindsey Vonn was visibly injured, causing Macuso to have to re-do her run.

Billy Elliot on Broadway

As much fun as I'd been having this past week stalking Brandi Carlile, driving around the New York suburbs, taking my grandparents to Costco, and collecting bagels and apple pies from my old stomping grounds, I felt as though something was remiss on this trip. It was something that I couldn't quite put my finger on until I got on a train to Manhattan, got off in midtown, and hit Broadway. Though seeing my favorite rock star do her thing in my hometown was certainly a trip, I was starting to feel like a traitor to Broadway. After all, in my world, usually the entire reason to come to New York is to support theater and feed my showtunes habit. I was already starting to feel the pangs of guilt and longing on Tuesday, the day that my friends in Chicago and I were supposed to go see the national tour of Rent, but I found myself on the outskirts of Manhattan, watching the farthest thing from a Broadway musical imaginable. Yesterday, I felt like I had finally returned to reality when I ended up wandering around Times Square, listening to the strains of showtunes pouring out of storefronts, and deciding which musical to check out that night. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to choose from, since Broadway has taken a huge downturn in these times of economic crisis. I forged on anyway, and ended up with a balcony seat to Billy Elliot. I was wary of this production at first, since I'm not usually a huge fan of non-musical movies being made into Broadway musicals, but the reviews for this from friends and critics alike have been positive, and I love musicals with lots of dancing, so I decided to check it out. Sitting in a Broadway theater, hovering over an orchestra pit, listening to the two old biddies sitting next to me kvetch, and watching a 12 year old ballet prodigy on stage was definitely a welcome change of pace from the rest of the week.

Billy Elliot The Musical is a fairly faithful adaptation of the film, both versions directed by Stephen Daldry. It's a story that's ripe for Broadway – a 12 year old boy with a dead mother is stuck in a dying mining town in Northern England, during the mining strike in the mid-80's. One day, while trying to recover from his usually disastrous boxing lesson, he finds his way into a ballet class and a mentor/surrogate mother named Mrs. Wilkinson. Ballet, it turns out, is his ticket out of working class minutiae, but first he has his striking family to contend with before he can make it to the auditions for the Royal Ballet. With music by Elton John, it turns out to be the perfect theme for the Broadway audience – an audience who can surely appreciate the desire to trade working class ideals for high brow culture in the big city, as well as the running "celebrate your individuality" theme.

There are definitely some changes in the pacing in order to fit Billy Elliot into his new medium – where the film rollicks along gently to a satisfying ending, the stage production hits a few snags along the way. Compared to the film, the stage play looks a bit clunkier, and though the musical numbers are mostly well worth the time it takes to sit through them, they do occasionally seem misplaced or misdirected. In the film version, when Billy accidentally stumbles upon his first ballet class, he does just that. In the stage version, he stumbles upon a hot mess of pre-teen ballerinas doing a silly dance number, an awkward tribute to musicals past that just misses the mark. They're led by the shrewd Mrs. Wilkinson, who becomes an unwitting mentor to Billy, but in this number, resembled an even shriller version of Miss Hanigan. That one number, along with the sound issues in the opening number were enough to make me worry for the rest of the production. Thankfully, though, the cast and the script recover quickly, and it only gets better from there.

As can be expected from a musical about a dancer, the choreography was probably the best part. Dance numbers ranged in style from ballet, to modern, to tap combined with Irish step dance. For a musical about ballet, Billy Elliot sure did have a lot of tap numbers, but they work to the show's advantage, in a rare moment of symbolism through dance that's not seen much on Broadway anymore. While Billy is pliè-ing his heart out in ballet class, his father and brother are facing a violent and chaotic strike at the coal mine they're trying to save. The raucousness of the tap numbers performed by the miners served to symbolize the chaotic nature of life in this mining town, and it provides a good contrast to the soft music and tutus of the ballet world that Billy lives in. Plus, the last time I saw this many tap numbers on Broadway was in 42^nd Street, so it was refreshing to see a more contemporary use of the genre. At the beginning of the show, seeing the tough-guy miners break into a tap number was jarring, but it served its purpose until the very end, when all hell breaks loose in the unnecessary and silly dance-break finale.

Overall, this show does exactly what a dance musical should: furthers the story through dance, making the choreography the most expressive part of the show. Everything culminates in the second act, in a dream ballet no doubt inspired by the ones invented by Agnes DeMille for Oklahoma and Carousel. It's a pas de deux between Billy and his older self, and I will admit that when the stage cleared, revealing a cloud of smoke and the two dancers, I was a little worried. But by the middle of the piece, the strains of Swan Lake start to escalate, the dancing gets more impassioned, and we're amazed that a 12 year old can dance with so much maturity and earnestness. Unlike other musicals starring precocious children, the casting agents over at Billy Elliot managed to find pre-teen boys who can dance, act and sing with a maturity level way beyond their years. What results is a compelling and complex main character, and you forget that you're watching a 6^th grader on stage.

When the show ended, and the silly production number at the end finally dissipated, we were reminded that it is, once again, the time of year for the Broadway Cares fundraiser. I'm only mentioning this because I'm a huge sucker for it – the ending of the show, though emotional, was marred for me by the dance number I disliked; but what really moved me at the end of the show were the Broadway Cares speeches. Broadway Cares is a nonprofit formed by members of Actors' Equity to raise money for people with AIDS. It was originally started in the mid-80's as a call to action for a community of performers who were losing friends right and left, and not getting recognition from the press about it. It's been around ever since I was old enough to attend Broadway shows, so to me, it's always just been a given part of going to the theater. It just moves me because it shows that even in the entertainment industry, where people can be ruthless, competitive, divas, etc., Equity has managed to band together on something and form a community around a tragedy that affects them all personally.