Celebrate America – Review
The plain blue walls of the Taggart Student Center Ballroom were hidden behind the bright lights, partner dancing and exciting music accompanied by loud brass instruments for the Celebrate America Show student night Wednesday. A stage, complete with staircases going up and down the north wall, surrounded the live jazz band in the large room.
Three hundred students attended with friends, a date or to support a friend who performed in the nonstop, upbeat show.
Susan Evans, a junior in music therapy, said she liked how the show was different than other events on campus.
“It was awesome,” Evans said.
The show opened to the theme song, “Fascinating Rhythm,” and the performance included bright blue sequined dresses, dancers doing the can-can and men in fancy suits. Every song following the opening had new costumes and new arrangements of big band tunes.
Almost all of the 18 songs were accompanied by dancing, but some were sung a capella.
Sara Cox, also a junior in music therapy, said she loved the a capella songs because she enjoys the barbershop type music. Another audience member, Andi Howell, said she has done some singing in the past and thought the musical arrangements were incredible.
A few special performers were brought in for some tunes, such as Lyle Allen, who played the banjo to accompany Valerie Harris, who yodeled. Another soloist, Aprilrae Anthony, came to the performance and performed a solo bluesy jazz song, “This Time the Dreams on Me.” In the middle of her performance, professional dancer Seth Nydegger walked down the aisle to the stage in a tuxedo and grabbed her hand and danced with her while she sang.
Another performance, Pennsylvania 65,000, included all 10 dancers wearing short blond wigs, polka-dotted dresses and red headsets. A telephone switchboard was behind the dancers, and they each took a wire off of it halfway through the performance and danced with it.
All of the costumes were special to each dance, which added to the show.
“The costumes were pretty true to the era,” said Nicole Hicken, a senior in English teaching. Hicken said she also knew many of the performers, whom she went to support.
Another combined dance was the “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” in which all the dancers wore engineer hats and striped overalls.
Before the show ended, the cast brought out 10 American flags, sang an armed forces salute and asked those who had served to stand.
The performance ended with an a capella version of “America the Beautiful.”
“They did really good. I’m really proud of everybody,” said Director Brenda Anthony.
After the audience finished clapping, they also had a chance to take the stage and show their moves with a dance contest. The dancing and dance contest was accompanied by the live band, a rare chance for many big band swing dancers.
Tonight and Saturday are the last two nights of the performance, which starts at 8 p.m. in the TSC Ballroom. Tickets are $42.50 and can be purchased at the ticket offices at the Spectrum and the TSC.
-ranae.bang@aggiemail.usu.edu
