OBA OBA ’92
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Oba Oba ’92 features, among other things, a lambada that makes the version danced at Casanova’s look like a Texas two-step–the top couple moving in ways generally thought possible only in figure skating or gymnastics. But any suggestiveness in the dance–described in the program as “voluptuous, sensual, and downright carnal”–is dispelled by the gleeful innocence with which the dancers execute their exuberant duets. The big sunny smiles help too–no frozen Balanchine faces in this show. After a time even the abundance of bare breasts and buttocks comes to appear so natural that one begins to wonder why on earth anyone would opt to dance garbed in anything more than the diaperlike loincloths (which I’m told constitute standard beachwear in Rio de Janeiro) that conceal the waistbands on the performers’ deceptively flimsy tights.
Like the Folies-Bergere, Oba Oba delivers a lot–almost too much–for the money. Though the various production numbers are arranged to allow the audience a breather from time to time, the episodic structure and sensory overload still tend to grow a trifle fatiguing. The “Rhythm Beaters” piece runs just a bit too long, the “Macumba” number verges on colonialistic camp (unlike, surprisingly, the homage to Carmen Miranda, known by her countrymen to have been a far more serious and professional artist than her Hollywood legacy would indicate), and including fire-eaters and jugglers in the lineup may bring back flashes of the Ed Sullivan Show. But these minor drolleries are more than compensated for by the understated elegance of Eliana Estevao’s silky a cappella rendering of the exquisite “Aquarela do Brazil,” the enunciating agility of Angela Mara and Carlos Leca during a song that becomes a speed-singing contest, and the dazzling virtuosity of the capoeira dancers: headstands are fairly common among acrobats, but how about headhops and headslides? Or 20 neck rolls in ten seconds without a trace of whiplash?
