The Joffrey and Prince: A Funky Pas de Deux

In the Beatles’ heyday, the fabs played a command performance before the Queen at the Royal Albert Hall, prompting John Lennon to exhort those “in the cheap seats” to clap along while encouraging royals and others in the tonier balcony to merely “rattle your jewelry.”

Much upwardly mobile rattling is likewise going on this week at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, where the Joffrey Ballet is unveiling “Billboards,” scored to the songs of one Prince (And I Am Funky) Rogers Nelson.

At curtain call on opening night, one could look up from the floor toward the Founders Circle balcony and see rows full of the middle-aged (and upward) standing in ovation, excitedly clapping along in their tuxes in time with the reprise of Prince’s “Willing and Able,” as if getting in the mood to cut a hip-hop rug over at the official post-show Glam Slam party with a Wendy or Lisa wanna-be.

. . . Which to some is yet another happy sign that the perceived separations between high art and pop art are tumbling down like Berlin’s own wall, but, to others, begs the question: Is it too late to bring back the generation gap?

After the performance, arts patrons and matrons were standing in line to buy T-shirts that had the Joffrey show’s signage on the front and the composer’s face and androgynous logo colorfully emblazoned on the back. Maybe the concessionaires should have silk-screened up another one that said, “Mom and Dad went to the Prince show and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”

With even the old school seemingly eager to embrace the shotgun wedding of R&B; and ballet, it was hard to find anyone who seemed terribly offended. One exception was a mother seen pulling her very dressed-up 8-year-old--whom she’d apparently picked the wrong night to introduce to high culture--away in a huff. The girl was overheard lecturing her distraught mother: “I don’t understand how if it said the music is by Prince that anyone could think it would be classical music .”

Evidently Mom had also missed the Joffrey’s “Tonight Show” debut earlier in the week, an elegantly saucy bump-and-grind pas de deux (to “The Question of U”), which straddled that fine line between caressing and copping a feel. This historic TV appearance also had Jay Leno witnessing a toeshoe-sucking scene destined to go down in oral-gratification history.

Inside the house--where there were few other minors to be seen, despite the old-timers’ mantra that “the kids love it”--the reception was rapturous. Audiences whooped and whistled when the opening notes of “Purple Rain” came up in the dark, just like they did when the ballet played San Francisco. (But, unlike up there, no one here was P.C. enough to boo when the choreography for “Thunder” depicted Catwoman-like gals teasing horny, clownish guys.)

Applauding each leap or spin like a younger crowd might cheer on an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo, all-embracing L.A. seemed to audibly adore every sexy nanosecond. An exhilarating evening of edgy pop vigor, philogyny and physicality? Of course. Cheesy, too? Certainly. Welcome to rock ‘n’ roll.

Given the overwhelming vocal support of the hall, grouches forming minority pockets of dissent--be they ballet traditionalists or underwhelmed post-modernists--had to seek each other out in the lobby afterward.

“I miss George Balanchine,” confessed one tuxedoed gent waiting for his wife by the exit, looking half-forlorn and half-bemused (and unwilling to offer his name). “It’s not my cup of tea, but who am I? Look at me, I’m old, I’ve got gray hair. It’s a talented company, full of exuberance. The kids were screaming and yelling. Look at the people talking--they’re happy, they’re excited,” he said, surveying the lobby, almost apologetic about his reservations. “It was disco at the Dorothy Chandler--and that’s fine, too, and I think we have to accept it.”

A few yards away, Joffrey subscriber Lisa Kleckner was offering an imitation pelvic thrust like the ones found in the controversial “Thunder” choreography for the amusement of her friends. But she wasn’t mocking the show itself. “I think the Joffrey is smart to do this, because lately ballet has not been commercially doing it.” And? “And I thought they pulled it off,” she enthused. “They’ve always been a little avant-garde, but to me it’s a whole new Joffrey.”

Many others chimed in their guard-changing agreement. But outside the pavilion’s doors, where a heated debate was going on, Beate Ackroyd--a dancer and a Prince fan--was less than knocked out by how the twain met.

“It made me think of Balanchine, who took ballet as it was, turned it inside out and really listened to the music. These people could have done that, but they just grabbed at unsophisticated cliches,” she lamented. “It wasn’t up to the genius of Prince’s music, it just kissed his butt. There was this approach of ‘This is pop-rock, so let’s do pop-rock movements.’ With some of the stuff they tried to get too hip, like they sat down and watched MTV and tried to pick up a few moves. That’s why it was hollow, because they know nothing of the hip-hop choreography they were trying to copy.”

So there were those on both sides of the erstwhile generational fence who thought the Joffrey was slumming here. Demographically, at least, though, the Joffrey seemed to have realized the rare goal of satisfying most regular customers and bringing in a whole new crowd too.

And it was by all indications a swell “date ballet.”

As the throngs departed, a few romantics lingered to gaze contentedly at the Music Center’s dancing water fountains, which this night were alit in purple in honor of the flamboyantly color-conscious composer.

First-time ballet-goer Oscar Manjarrez, cuddling fountain-side with a date, was pleasantly surprised that the ballet was sexier and less stuffy than he’d expected: “I didn’t think they were gonna go that far. I thought it would be much more wholesome. But it was very loose. It got me there!” he said--referring, apparently, to his libido. “Did it get you there, honey?” he asked, turning to his girlfriend.

She demurred. But just then the purple Pavilion waters bobbed a little higher, perhaps reflecting the aphrodisiacal affirmation of the gods, if not necessarily George Balanchine.

Pro

“I think the Joffrey is smart to do this, because lately ballet has not been commercially doing it. And I thought they pulled it off. They’ve always been a little avant-garde,

but to me it’s a whole new Joffrey.’--Lisa Kleckner, Joffrey subscriber

Con

“With some of the stuff they tried to get too hip, like they sat down and watched MTV and tried to pick up a few moves. That’s why it was hollow, because they know nothing of the hip-hop choreography.’--Beate Ackroyd, a dancer and Prince fan