With temperatures continuing to plummet and the UK facing yet another onslaught of wintry weather, the Shaftesbury theatre has just what the West End ordered as Burn The Floor turns up the heat for its 2013 return.
Led by champion dance duo Kristina Rihanoff and Robin Windsor, Burn The Floor takes audiences on a dramatic journey through more dances than Ann Widdecombe could count on her two left feet, as 18 dancers from across the globe take to the stage – and the stalls – for an evening of ballroom entertainment.
With enough tassels, feathers, sequins and lace to open its own haberdashery, the show’s impressive array of costumes are injected with passionate verve by Jason Gilkison’s jaw-dropping choreography and the provocative moves of Rihanoff, Windsor and their posse of performers. But that’s not to say that the former Strictly Come Dancing pair takes centre stage in this smouldering dance sensation, as each dancer has more than one moment to shine during the evening’s continual stream of ballroom and Latin sequences.
Men fight over women and women fight over men, as each dance evolves into a battle for dominance or competition for someone’s heart. But what the production lacks in plot, it makes up for in dynamic energy, as the dancers spin, slide and shimmy across the expanse of the Shaftesbury theatre’s stage.
Interspersing the elegant romance of Viennese waltzes and emotive passion of rumbas and tangos with the Beyoncé-beating booty-shaking of jives and quicksteps, Burn The Floor is a non-stop frenzy of infectious rhythm, set to an eclectic soundtrack of popular tunes, from REM’s moving ballad Everybody Hurts to Daniel Bedingfield’s upbeat hit Gotta Get Thru This, with Peter Saul Blewden and Vonzell Solomon’s providing powerful vocals accompanied by an impressive live band.
While the first night audience was full of Strictly stars, you don’t need to be a dance fanatic to enjoy Burn The Floor’s sizzling stage spectacle, impossible as it is to deny the talent of these svelte and talented performers. If nothing else, it might inspire a trip to the gym.