Friday 5th – Saturday 6th (2.30 and 7.30) at the Mumford Theatre, £4-8.
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Watching a tap dancer try to be sexy is a deeply uncomfortable experience. Particularly when, as happened last night, they’re set against blisteringly hot contemporary booty-shakers. It’s Cliff Richard versus Britney; Celine Dion versus Mariah Carey; West Side Story versus Grease.
You see, tap dance isn’t cool. That hot girl in the nail bar you’ve wanted to get on since sixth form? She does street dance. Your local librarian, the one with the squint and the perfectly centered ponytail? Yup, you guessed it. Tap.
And it isn’t just me: I could hear groans of agony rippling around the auditorium every time the lights went down and we heard the tell-tale tippity-tap of Mandy from the Reference section. I’m sure it’s fun to practise – not that you’d know it from the rigor mortis grins last night. Perhaps it’s even fun to perform. The problem is, tap is simply unbearable to watch.
It was judicious of the choreographer to employ safety by numbers in the bigger numbers to hide the crap dancers, and wise also to give two of the street dancers – both called Ruth, apparently – room to show off. I was mesmerized by their Fix Up, Look Sharp routine.
I enjoyed the girl band audition from a clutch of the sluttier dancers, who shimmied to Girls Aloud while the front row alternately vommed and came. Though that piece illustrated a general problem: when you have such talented leads, it really shows when the backing dancers are lacklustre, or a bit tired. “She’s only in CUTAZZ because her mother makes the costumes,” I almost heard from the row behind me. She needn’t have bothered: while the street dancers gyrated in little more than leggings and boob tubes, the librarians made us wince with awful skirts and bits of crap tied around their necks in a hellishly anodyne parody of studied Parisian nonchalance.
Two parallel shows wrestle for your attention within Shine. The first one is boring, and slightly sad. You watch it with pity and you applaud reluctantly. But there’s a second, stupendously good one, too: the street dancers, whose routines are a gay man’s wet dream. But unlike those overweight, sweaty poofs in provincial nightclubs, these girls can really dance. When they want you to get hot under the collar… you get hot.
When the street dancers turned lyrical, bathed in red light for a beautiful slow number, you could see they had soul as well as attitude. But it was mostly attitude: think body-popping, swooshes and sharp jumps. What Tyra Banks would call “fierce.”
I could have done without the “interludes,” to be honest. Yeah, I know the real dancers need time to get changed, but a bit of OK-ish prancing around to Shirley Bassey remixes didn’t really do it for me. (Get This Party Started? I wish they had.)
Shine is a celebration of pop culture; a warning against one too many choccie biccies at the issue desk; a chance for some of the University’s best dancers to show off and, overall, a bloody entertaining night out.






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Despite the fact that his name Yianno-POU-LOS Mr Milo is clearly, in fact ,quite FULL of shit. Tap dancing not cool? Has he not heard of Savion Glover? Obviously not. Not sexy? I think Sammy Davis Jr. fans would disagree. And clearly he has some form of distorted tinnitus if he thinks he heard groans in the audience whenever a tap dance was on- I mean what twat would go to watch a TAP and Jazz dance show if they didn't like tap? And people with 'rigor mortis' are hardly likely to be grinning. Furthermore, he defintely didn't hear anybody say "She’s only in CUTAZZ because her mother makes the costumes" because no-one's mother makes the costumes- they are in fact sourced and created by a dedicated member of the student committee who run CUTAZZ- a student who has better things to do than write amateur reviews on an art form they clearly have absolutely no idea about and therefore no right to comment on.
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As for the 'interludes' he clearly has no idea of the point of a dance show- to see the progression from beginners to advanced dancers- for of course, CUTAZZ isn't just a society for West-End standard dancers but for dedicated people of all abilites. And what respectable dance review is filled with words like "came", "gyrated " and "gay man’s wet dream". Milo Yannipoopoo is quite evidently sexually frustrated. He watched Shine with pity, but really he is the one to be pitied: a sad case- deaf, bitter and gagging for action that he just can't get. That hot girl in the nail bar you’ve wanted to get on since sixth form? Dream on Milo, dream on…
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Obviously, being a level headed person with some idea about dance, I completely agree with the first two comments. How Milo gets off on writing a whole article slating tap, a dance form that made up half of the title of the society putting on Shine is beyond understanding. Fair enough be controversial, but you've just made yourself sound stupid (how the hell are girls gyrating a 'gay man's wet dream'?!), ignorant (slating a show that according to a professional dancer was stunning) and heartless (just how many hundreds of hours do you think not only the dancers but the committee have put into this?).
Seriously, grow up.
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I can’t believe what I’ve just read! Does this idiot know how much time, effort and commitment it takes to put a show together. Clearly he was given the task of covering SHINE and was upset to be missing a re-run of Star Trek.
I am all for expressing your thoughts but when you are blatantly just slagging people off,it's just plain wrong. Just because Jeremy Clarkson and Chris Moyles do it doesn't mean it's good for everyone and get your facts right before you say anything!
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I was at the show on the same date. I'd like to say that I completely agree with Milo Yiannopoulos and share his feelings on the show. I will be the first to admit: I know nothing about dancing, I am purely a spectator. Speaking from an Audience members point of view, he's bang on the money!
Oh, and this:
"You see, tap dance isn’t cool. That hot girl in the nail bar you’ve wanted to get on since sixth form? She does street dance. Your local librarian, the one with the squint and the perfectly centered ponytail? Yup, you guessed it. Tap"
Genuis! Well done for speaking your mind. You WILL be slated for it though
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And so will you be slated too 'Audience Member.' I was in the audience too and think, considering that the society has to accommodate so many willing members and dedicated dancers they did an excellent job. I think you and Milo whatever his name, are out of line for thinking that the language he used and some of his word content is appropriate. It's disrespectful, immature and vulgar. If you want to review something, fair enough, even in a negative way, at least do it in respectful manner. I didn't hear any groans, only applause and support from the audience. Oh and I was sat at the front. Way to go on making yourself look like an ignorant, arrogant, pubescent teenager Milo.
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I really don't understand why Milo is asked to review the dance shows when he clearly has no knpwedge or appreciation of dance – he reviewed Sleeping Beauty (which I admittedly didnt see) with a review full of immature, sexist, uneducated and frankly stupid remarks. I DID see this show. I am not an expert in dance, but I can assure you his review is ridiculous. I don't understand the need to try and write as many offensive things as possible in the attempt to be 'daring' or in some way funny. There is clearly some shoddy writing here that was created in the attempt.You 'almost' heard from behind you? So you did, or you didn't? As has been shown in another comment, that was untrue.
Obviously, the standard was not, in many cases professional. Obviously, because this was an amateur production. Some people have not been dancing that long and this was a showcase to show people what they've done. I would like to point out that the Tab were asked NOT to review this show, so clearly the dancers dont have a case of sour grapes about a review they wanted containing information they didn't. This wasn't meant for reviewing, it was meant for enjoyment.
This was a dance show, and thus, contained many types of dance. The idea that the girls who did tap were somehow less attractive than those who did street is ridiculous – he may not have noticed but many girls did both types of dance. It may also disappoint him to realise, but they werent all on stage to look as sexy as possible for you in some alternative form of lapdancing, but to perform some high quality dance.
As someone entirely uninvolved with the dance show, I can say that, his idiotic chauvinism aside, it was an enjoyable evening with some genuine talent and certainly a lot of enthusiasm and variety
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