Rock the Ballet is a production by Rasta Thomas‘ Bad Boys of Dance Company. They danced at the Museumsquartier in Vienna.

“Plot:”
Rock the Ballet combines (modern) ballet with modern music – like U2, Michael Jackson, Lenny Kravitz, Queen, etc – and puts together a dance show with six male dancers and one female.

My review can basically be summed up with “swoon.” I love dance, ballet especially, be it classic or modern and Rock the Ballet takes great dance, great music and sexy men, puts it all in a blender and then gives you a heart-attack inducing milk shake of awesome.

[Unfortunately, this amount of naked was never achieved in the actual show.]

It took me a couple of songs to really get into the show – I was expecting it to be more Ballet-y (maybe like the dancing in The Adjustment Bureau), but it starts off with choreographies (by Adrienne Canterna) that are so modern that it’s almost HipHop. [Not that I don’t like seeing HipHop, it’s just, it’s not really what I came for…] But after a few songs it does get more classical and I adjusted my expectations and we kind of met in the middle and then it was absolutely brilliant.

And when I see it was brilliant, I mean that I actually had tears in my eyes because the dancing was just so wonderful. And then I had tears in my eyes from laughing – when they start to tango with blow-up dolls, for example. Or when they perform Bohemian Rhapsody.

And then there was the end of the second half/the encore which was just… wooooaaaaah. I tell you, there’s a big future in Strip Ballet. I mean, if you can choreograph something to “I’m Too Sexy” and make it actually sexy, it’s saying something already. But they actually had me speechless (and I probably had a big, goofy, slightly high grin on my face, too), because holy motherfucking crap that was hot. [Okay, Lena, breathe. Just breathe. Then go watch the youtube video again. Then breathe some more.]

But apart from having a direct line to my hormones, the show was generally wonderful to look at. I loved the video projections by William Cusick, who provided a beautiful backdrop to the dancers that always fit the songs and the mood.

And last but not least, the song choice was great, too.

Summarising: If you’re even remotely interested in dance, you’re going to love this. [If I had another free evening while they’re in Vienna, I’d totally see it again.]