HQ Review: St. Louis Rhythm Collaborative’s “Live at the Last Hotel”
STL Rhythm Collaborative opened its season with Live at the Last Hotel, performed at Missouri Baptist University, October 6-8. This unique show featured tap, jazz, and modern dancers made up of company dancers and trainees from moSTLy Tap, Washington University dance students, Missouri Baptist University dance students, and individual dancers from the St. Louis community. They all shared the stage with The Hard Bop Messengers, who provided the live jazz music onstage for the entire performance.
Live at the Last Hotel took the audience through the daily happenings at The Last Hotel, which is an actual hotel located on Washington Avenue in downtown St. Louis. According to the show program, the International Shoe Company occupied the building before it became The Last Hotel. It was the largest shoe manufacturer in the United States from 1900 to 1922. The hotel’s name gives a nod to the shoe lasts that shoe manufacturers used when they shaped and repaired shoes.
A few various props, such as cleaning towels that the dancers held as they danced to “Make the Beds,” and a few simple furniture pieces, such as a chair and small table used in “Rooftop View,” served as a set for the hotel. The colorful lighting on the blank scrim in the back changed with every piece, which beautifully enhanced the mood of the music and choreography. The simple lighting and minimal props and set pieces sufficiently conveyed where pieces took place.
All styles of the dance pieces throughout this performance portrayed various day-to-day activities at the hotel, such as multiple tap dancers portraying housekeepers and chefs working their busy shifts, one modern dancer performing a melancholy solo as guest waiting alone at a restaurant table, and a group of eight jazz dancers celebrating the beautiful sunshine and spring air, to name just a few.
The entire performance showcased not only talented artists in their respective fields in front of an appreciative audience; it gave these artists a chance to perform together onstage at the same time. Tap, jazz, and modern dancers performed in their own individual pieces, as well as together in the same pieces. Mixing styles of dance onstage is not often seen, but the choreographers and dancers executed those pieces very well and gave the audience polished, lively dances every time.
The jazz musicians, including a vocalist, were not merely accompanists to the dancers onstage. They were all seamlessly integrated into the performance, especially when the dancers and musicians would interact with each other with a smile, nod, or facial expressions toward each other. Instrumental soloists would often come downstage and stand among the dancers as they performed their solos, making their stance part of the dancing happening around them and further emphasizing the collaborative spirit that was evident throughout the entire show. The tap dancers’ sounds featured a variety of tempos and changes in dynamics and added a vibrant percussive element to the music, but not so much that the band’s talented percussionist was overshadowed. Solo performers, whether they were musicians or dancers, improvised their respective sounds and movements during their featured moments. The audience enthusiastically applauded every soloist throughout the show, which contributed to the harmonious atmosphere of the whole performance.
After the performance concluded, all three dance directors/choreographers—Maria Majors, Erin Morris, and Cecil Slaughter—and musical director John Covelli sat down for a Q&A session with the audience, where they shared more about the creative process behind this unique show.
Live at the Last Hotel combined multiple styles of dance, upbeat and easy-listening jazz music, and St. Louis history into one show that left the audience applauding and smiling from beginning to end. STL Rhythm Collaborative and The Hard Bop Messengers gave everyone an exuberant show to remember and much to look forward to later in the performance season.