{"id":12462,"date":"2015-05-15T00:12:06","date_gmt":"2015-05-15T07:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=12462"},"modified":"2015-05-14T22:04:06","modified_gmt":"2015-05-15T05:04:06","slug":"try-to-make-a-visit-to-heights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2015\/05\/15\/try-to-make-a-visit-to-heights\/","title":{"rendered":"Try to make a visit to Heights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luc Roderique as Usnavi and Sharon Crandall as Abuela Claudia in Arts Club\u2019s In the Heights. (photo by David Cooper)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Even before the musical starts, the set draws you in. Then the music, the lighting, the actors, the choreography. It\u2019s not that any one of these aspects is better than the other in Arts Club\u2019s In the Heights<\/em>, now playing at the Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage. This is merely their order of appearance.<\/p>\n

Ted Roberts has created three storefronts and an apartment with a backdrop of the George Washington Bridge. The sun comes up \u2013 thanks to Marsha Sibthorpe \u2013 as a graffiti artist plies his trade. He\u2019s listening to music, but it takes awhile to realize that there\u2019s a live band \u201cliving\u201d above the bodega \u2013 directed by Ken Cormier, the music is such a part of the scene that you don\u2019t really notice it until you find yourself moving to it, or the actors start to move to it. Enter Lisa Stevens\u2019 choreography. It, too, is subtle, occurring in bits and bursts with a few professionally trained dancers who raise the quality across the board.<\/p>\n

While other critics have found the music and lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda and book by Quiara Alegr\u00eda Hudes (who, according to the program, is of Puerto Rican and Jewish descent) wanting, I don\u2019t need to be intellectually challenged when I go the theatre, and I don\u2019t generally expect musicals to portray gritty realism, so I thoroughly enjoyed In the Heights<\/em>. It was a refreshingly different cultural setting from other musicals and plays I\u2019ve seen in Vancouver, and that made it easier for me to lose myself in it. While I\u2019ll admit to drifting a bit near the end of the first half, the predictability of the story was a comfort, rather than an obstacle to my enjoyment.<\/p>\n

There are two main plotlines. One centres around the bodega owner, Usnavi. He is a reluctant entrepreneur, having taken over the business when his parents died. He dreams of returning to the Dominican Republic, but feels duty-bound to keep the bodega going, and he\u2019s also got to think about his sidekick cousin, the wise-cracking Sonny, who helps him out at the store. Not only that but (of course?) he\u2019s torn about leaving, as he is madly in love \u2013 but too shy initially to approach \u2013 Vanessa, who works at next door\u2019s soon-to-be-closing hair salon.<\/p>\n

The other plotline focuses on Nina. Returning home to Washington Heights from Stanford University, she is the pride of the neighborhood, yet she has fallen short. Having to work two jobs has caused her grades to fall and she\u2019s lost her scholarship. Her parents\u2019 car-service business is barely keeping afloat, so there\u2019s no money to be had there. In addition to the tensions that arise when Nina tells her parents the truth about her school situation, there is the not-so-small matter of her being in love with Benny, who, while trusted by her parents, for whom he has worked for years, is not Hispanic.<\/p>\n

There is also a heat wave, a blackout and a death, and poverty, gentrification and other social issues are hinted at, however, none of these underlying elements rises to the foreground. In the Heights is light, fun fare and I, for one, won\u2019t complain about that. The actors all do a great job at spitting out their lyrics clearly, staying on key and dancing in step; the musicians hit all the right notes. I left the Stanley in a better mood than I arrived, and that, to me, means it was a musical worth seeing.<\/p>\n

In the Heights<\/em> is on stage until June 7. For tickets and information, visit artsclub.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From the JI<\/em> pages<\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"image<\/a><\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>
JWB, 1987<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lisa Stevens, the choreographer and assistant director of In the Heights, grew up in Vancouver, and readers of the Jewish Independent \/ Jewish Western Bulletin<\/em> have followed some of the highlights of her career, even her pre-career.<\/p>\n

She was part of the Grade 1 classes being f\u00eated at the Shalom Yeladim celebration led by Rabbi Wilfred Solomon and Dr. Sheldon Cherry that welcomed the young students enrolled at Beth Israel School and Talmud Torah in 1973, and she shared her bat mitzvah on May 30, 1980, at Beth Israel with Lisa Goldman. She was winning dance competitions by 1977 and teaching by 1986, when she was reported to be \u201cthe youngest choreographer in Canada,\u201d at age 18.<\/p>\n

\"images<\/a>
JWB, 2002<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Stevens opened her own dance studio in 1987 and her students were winning awards by 1992. In 1993, two of them \u201cbeat out 3,000 dancers to win the national finals (duo category) of the Sega Video Dance Contest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Off to London, England, in 1996, the JWB<\/em> also caught up with her once she\u2019d moved to New York. Stevens returns regularly to Vancouver to work on productions here and, no doubt, to visit family and friends. On more than one occasion, she\u2019s taken time to chat with the paper and for that, we are appreciative.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Luc Roderique as Usnavi and Sharon Crandall as Abuela Claudia in Arts Club\u2019s In the Heights. (photo by David Cooper) Even before the musical starts, the set draws you in. Then the music, the lighting, the actors, the choreography. It\u2019s not that any one of these aspects is better than the other in Arts Club\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[490,3742,1718,3743],"class_list":["post-12462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-arts-club","tag-lin-manuel-miranda","tag-lisa-stevens","tag-quiara-alegria-hudes"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}