ROYSTON DANCE COMPANY in
StreetSwing
a new dance show created for
Queens Theatre in the Park
March 3 – 4, 2007

Talented.  Versatile.  Creative.  Inspiring.  Insatiable! 
 Just a few adjectives critics use to describe Robert Royston.

Queens - Queens Theatre in the Park presents the Royston Dance Company in an all new dance show created for Queens Theatre in the Park.  StreetSwing features many of the performers from Robert Royston’s hit co-creation, Swango. Robert Royston’s dance career includes 4 US OPEN dance titles, performing in the Broadway Musical "Swing!," an appearance in the movie, "Dance with Me," performing at the Tony Awards, his Queens Theatre record-breaking hit, SWANGO, in 2005, and appearing with his wife Nicola as featured performers in last season’s mega-hit, Broadway Song and Dance.

StreetSwing, which is part of the Theatre’s Dance Series, sponsored by Flushing Savings Bank,plays Saturday, March 3rd at 2pm & 8pm and on Sunday, March 4 at 3pm. Tickets for the Royston Dance Company in StreetSwing are $37 (Seniors $33 – Students $20) and are available at the Queens Theatre in the Park box office at 718 760-0064, or online at www.queenstheatre.org.  Also visit the Website for directions, additional performance information or to add your name to the Theatre’s mailing list and/or join its e-mail club. 
         
Queens Theatre in the Park is a tax exempt, not-for-profit Performing Arts Center located in Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

SWANGO REVIEW!

In lively competition, swing vs. tango rocks

Newsday - Long Island, N.Y.
Date: May 13, 2005

No wonder they don't mix. Like oil and vinegar, they repel each other. Swing is all about the dress-down sensuality of abandon. Tango is the dress-up dance of loneliness and lust.

The Bartender knew he was in for it when he heard that dance partners from an Argentine-immigrant neighborhood across town would drop by The Warehouse, nightclub turf of couples devoted more to West Coast Swing than to each other. At The Warehouse, the guys in particular like to shwing in a related vernacular once the dancing is done.

"Swango," which made its world premiere last week at the White Plains Performing Arts Center, owes its literal vernacular to Rupert Holmes ("The Mystery of Edwin Drood," "Accomplice"). But the show would be nothing without the creative vision and vitality of Mariela Franganillo and Robert Royston, masters of tango and swing, respectively, under the tight directive rein of Tony Stimac.

Think "Contact" meets "Forever Tango."

Our tour guide is London native Paul Medford, who, as The Bartender, holds the key to the nightclub as well as the narrative. After introducing the swing regulars who arrive with their own music (brandishing a CD clues us - and the musicians' union - that "Swango" will be another musical without live music), The Bartender leads us on a history-lesson flashback. He traces swing to Harlem's Savoy Ballroom of the '20s, where the dance originated as the "Lindy Hop," in honor of Charles Lindbergh. Two original tunes by Holmes, "Soup du Jour" and "Temptress in Taupe," accompany the jazzy time- travel.

Back to the present-day Warehouse, materialized with post- industrial integrity by Dana Kenn and lit with romantic shadings by Burke Wilmore, tension simmers. The Argentine contingent shows the swingers a thing or two about the seduction of dance, stompingly led by Pamela Beatriz Garegnani and Juan Manuel Fernandez. Answering the challenge (to "Ch-ch-chain /chain of fools") is Cash, played by Robert Royston, in an athletic three-way with Royston's real-life wife, Nicola, and Laureen Baldovi.

The crossover wild card turns up when Franganillo, as nightclub waitress Malena, gives up her apron for a two-piece little black dress and joins Team Tango. Cash, forsaking his steady, stalks the mercurial Malena and tries to out-macho Angel Garcia Clemente, Malena's tango partner.

The Bartender admonishes all combatants and takes us on another tour, this time to tango's womb in a turn-of-the-20th-century bordello, complete with swinging gauchos - boleadoras ablaze - and prostitutes draped over the bar.

Back at The Warehouse, nothing is resolved until the swing versus tango dance-off turns violent. Or does it? The culminating fusion anticipated in the title sets "Dance With Me" to the feverish syncopation of "Hernando's Hideaway."

A fusion ticket to Broadway? Don't bet your dance card, or your bandonen, against it.

SWANGO. A new dance musical. Written by Rupert Holmes; conceived and choreographed by Mariela Franganillo and Robert Royston. At Queens Theatre in the Park, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, through May 22. Tickets $26-$32; call 718-760- 0064. Seen last Thursday at White Plains Performing Arts Center.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.