The Man, The Woman and George
“Recognized from the famous ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ these few notes became a reference every musician uses to propose something better than an interpretation: a reinvention. Oddly, despite the years and the multitude of versions, the song ‘The Man I Love’ retains its nobility even when hummed in the shower. It is without end. Jazzmen in particular regenerate it with a liberty and vitality only equaled by the original itself.
Refined and popular at the same time, George Gershwin’s music is testimony to the dismantling of genres so particular to Americans, which certainly was the springboard for the musical comedy phenomenon. Their global success is driven by the need for delicious levity, which is undoubtedly behind the renewed interest they enjoy today. During periods of hardship, new forms blossom to dispel the ghosts born from misfortune; this is conducive to dancing Gershwin one-to-one with only one thing in mind: insouciance.”
Michel Kelemenis
Echos
CM (Lisboa) Antonio Laginha
1stFeb.1999
The "dialogue" established between the performers is ingenious and the relationship between the sexes is positioned outside the chivalry of American musical film, without necessarily aspiring to involve our everyday reality. This duet for “necktie and boa” on several versions of George Gershwin’s “The Man I Love” ends with a long, Hollywood kiss, which concludes this dance full of contrasts and emotional nuances.
Without being American, Kelemenis’s reading is profound and sensual and brings to the stage that dreamy and poetic atmosphere that so captivated audiences around the world.
Público (Lisboa) Maria José Fazenda
30 jan.1999
The amorous relationship that Séverine Bauvais and Christophe Le Blay dance in “L’homme, la femme et George”, an excellent choreography by Michel Kelemenis, is less ostensibly triumphant and hence less illustrative. Several versions of Gershwin’s “The Man I Love” accompany this couple that, in the beginning, keep their distance until they finally join together via her desire. Here, the woman dictates the action.
She takes off her red shoes and, in a beautiful choreographic moment, launches into a game of seduction provoked by the movement of her feet. In this dance, whose vocabulary goes beyond the choreography of the musical film, a long kiss, a red “scarf” and a necktie are the symbols that remind us that in the end, it’s all about musical comedy.