{"id":210712,"date":"2026-04-20T13:34:50","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T17:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/theatre-and-dance\/?p=210712"},"modified":"2026-04-20T15:16:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T19:16:49","slug":"good-times-a-review-by-mari-s-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/theatre-and-dance\/2026\/04\/20\/good-times-a-review-by-mari-s-gold\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Times: A review by Mari S. Gold"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>About this post:<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>This article is a reprinted review by Mari S. Gold examining Lighten Up!, a dance program presented at the Theater at St. Jeans featuring performers from the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Dance Department.The Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Dance Ensemble performed alongside artists and ensembles including the Joffrey Ballet School and Joffrey Concert Group NY.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We live in challenging times that keep many of us perpetually on edge. What a delight to spend an evening that asks only that you look, listen and sometimes laugh out loud.<br \/>\nThat\u2019s the premise of\u00a0<strong><em>Lighten Up!<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 a two-night program of dances at the Theater at St. Jeans, performed by a roster of highly competent groups and soloists who all deserve appreciation.<br \/>\nFrom the opening number,\u00a0<em>The Skaters Ballet<\/em>, a reimagining from the 1948 musical comedy film,\u00a0<strong><em>Up in Central Park,<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0it\u2019s clear that pure enjoyment is the expectation. Even the opening image, a Currier and Ives print of \u201cCentral Park-Winter\u2014The Skating Pond\u201d- is a nostalgic delight and comes to life with the dancers.<br \/>\nOther standouts were\u00a0<em>For Ella<\/em>, three numbers choreographed by Margo Sappington, set to music by the queen of scat and danced by members of the Joffrey Ballet School\u2019s Pre-Professional Trainee Program and the numbers danced by Henning R\u0171bsam, who excels at mime, acting and movement.<br \/>\nAs the subtitle of the program title phrased it, there was \u2018nothing to ponder, nothing to analyze.\u201d<br \/>\nCheers to soloists Antonio Fini, Aoi Matsuda whose tossed-in shrug is perfection, Claire Porter and Mr. Rubsam and to the Joffrey Concert Group NY; members of the Joffrey Ballet School, NY.; Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Dance Ensemble and Valentina Kozlova dancing with Andre Jouraiev.<br \/>\nCostumes are modest yet highly effective especially those by Christian Holder.<br \/>\nA cheerful, entertaining evening with no deep thinking required: just what we need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About this post: This article is a reprinted review by Mari S. Gold examining Lighten Up!, a dance program presented at the Theater at St. Jeans featuring performers from the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Dance Department.The Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Dance Ensemble performed alongside artists and ensembles including the Joffrey Ballet School and Joffrey Concert Group NY. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":487,"featured_media":210713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-announcements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/theatre-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/theatre-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/theatre-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/theatre-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/487"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/theatre-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210712"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/theatre-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":210737,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/theatre-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210712\/revisions\/210737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/theatre-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/theatre-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/theatre-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/theatre-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}