City Dance Feeds Body and Mind This Valentine’s Day

By Claire Christine Spera

If you’re looking for dinner, drinks, dessert and a show for Valentine’s Day, then Houston City Dance’s production Behind Closed Doors is your one-stop shop for an age 18-plus night out.

The hour-long Feb. 13 performance at City Dance Studio has two start times, with the 5:30 pm show including light bites and drinks, and the 9:30 pm show including dessert and drinks. The venue provides an intimate setting for this sexy dance event, set in part to live music by Song Williamson and Band.

While City Dance has never before put on a dinner-theater Valentine’s Day show, their summer 2015 full-length ballet Junebug was later revived along with a traditional Southern dinner and sweet tea service. The sold-out event inspired Artistic Director Sherese Campbell to stage the Valentine’s-themed dinner-and-show concept.

In Behind Closed Doors, City Dance’s 10 multi-talented performers present an evening of everything from ballet and modern, to tango and flamenco, to tap and hip-hop. In employing these diverse styles, they’ll convey steamy love scenes, visually arresting moments, powerful sequences and tongue-in-cheek comical pieces.

“We want the audience to experience joy in being exposed to something other than a movie, a bar or simply dinner,” said Campbell. “We also want audiences to discover how precious dance is as an art form. Dancers are athletes, yet they don’t get the same respect. [With this production] we want to expand our audience base to people that have never seen the company.”

Song Williamson and Band’s music will be just as varied as the dance, explained Campbell.

“The music of the band is similar to neo-soul artists like Maxwell, D’Angelo, and Adele…The band will play tunes like Al Green’s Love and Happiness and Kiss from Prince for patrons to dance to after the show is over.”

The production itself features a mix of live and recorded music. In some of its sassier moments, the dancers get booty-licious while dancing to Meghan Trainor’s All About That Bass; perform a tribute to erotic dancer Josephine Baker’s Banana Dance; shimmy to the great Duke Ellington’s Take the A Train; and bring the era of Harlem Renaissance showgirls back to life in Savoy. Thigh-high stockings will also make an appearance in a sultry section of the evening.

In a more poetic segment, the choreography Be My Husband is a concoction of balletic and modern movements that conveys a passionate story about two people trying to “make it work.” Campbell says audiences will also be thrilled by 1930s/40s period piece Wear Your Clothes, a tap number done with dancers using a ballet barre. 

Behind Closed Doors may be a little bit of this, a little bit that, a little sip of this, a little bite of that — but its morsel-sized pieces promise to add up to a special treat bursting with flavor.