Dancespirit's eighth season, a remarkable mix of sights and sounds

Richard Morais, Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU:

Exhilarating and brilliant are the few adjectives space would allow to aptly describe Inspire, this season's offering from Dancespirit's production at the Montego Bay Civic Centre on Saturday.

The production, in a nutshell, is the talented and artistic presentation of music, drama and dance interwoven, in most instances, to tell a story.

The music was remarkable.

Shaneika Malcolm's rendition of Beyonce's Listen was exquisite.

So good was her presentation that she was initially believed to be lip syncing.

The best of what were many good presentations came when Malcolm and Donovan Gilpin sang The Prayer.

The music was there to help the plot, which was set against the background of the shooting death of a character (played by Mikhaila Davis) at a party.

Excellent rendition

The death was to draw the anger of the character's brother, played by George Bates. The Prayer was performed as a prayer for the angry brother and one could go as far as to suspect that it was good enough to soften the heart of the most hardened criminal.

Music put aside, however, other aspects of the production were equally outstanding.

Bates was exceptional in portraying a happy youngster who was transformed at the realisation of his sister's death.

The Phantom of the Opera, with director of the company, Philip Clarke, playing the phantom and Sheron Taylor playing Christine, was professionally done and very entertaining.

While there had to have been lead dancers, it was not easy to discern who they were, so good was the entire group.

This is the eighth Dancespirit production season and the fourth performance this year. Three others were held at Fairfield Theatre.

In thanking the patrons, Clarke asked for assistance and sponsorship to take the production to a wider audience.