Best. Gay. Week. Ever. (August 15, 2008)

THE HILLS ARE ALIVE WITH THE SIGHT OF MEN DANCING
Maria Von Trapp is a bald, gay Latino man. She’s also a hip-hop street dancer. And occasionally, even a woman. Or rather, several women.

These different incarnations of the famous singing governess make their appearances in Fraulein Maria, a contemporary dance riff on The Sound of Music from choreographer Doug Elkins.

Featuring Elkins’ inventive merging of dance traditions from classical to hip-hop, the piece is set to songs from The Sound of Music, but is far from a literal retelling of the classic musical. Some sections offer a cheeky wink at the movie’s iconic moments — such as a “Going on Sixteen” seduction interpreted by two men. Others are more abstract, such as Elkins’ performance of “Climb Every Mountain” in a hooded sweatshirt, mixing macho street moves with gorgeously fluid arm motions.

One of the many Marias to appear is Arthur Aviles, himself a choreographer, who with his boyfriend, created the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!) with the goal of “empowering women, people of color, and the GLBT community in the heart of the Bronx.”

Arthur Aviles as Maria dancing 'The Hills Are Alive'
(Photo courtesy of Steven Schreiber)

Aviles spoke with me about what it was like to grow up a “confused, closeted gay kid” in the late ’70s Bronx, who didn’t feel safe among the burgeoning breakdance circles he was drawn to. He instead turned to acceptable pastimes like wrestling, diving, and gymnastics. But at Bard College, he discovered how his athleticism could be turned to his true calling in dance, a career he forged, he says, through “blood, sweat, and tears.”

Aviles’ dance style is very much an athletic one. When he appears as Maria, he is not doing Maria in drag. Instead, we see a masculine-looking man who happens to be wearing a dress as he exults in the freedom of those music-filled hills.

Aviles says his performance is particularly inspired by how Julie Andrews in the film “goes against type, with that boyish haircut and gawky run. Her feminine and masculine sides are balanced.” He’s moved, he says, by her “quest for freedom … based in defiance, love, and protection.” It’s easy to see why those qualities would particularly resonate for gay viewers, and Aviles artfully brings them all out in his dancing.

Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music

To me, Aviles’ exhilarating dancing as Maria, and Fraulein Maria, as a whole, highlights what so many people, and particularly so many gay people, love about musicals. It’s not just a question of the romantic vision musicals offer of a world in which problems like Maria or even the threat of the Nazis can be solved through song and dance. It’s more about the ease with which one can escape into them, whether it be singing along with a cast album, or mimicking dance moves in the privacy of one’s own bedroom (something I know nothing about, I swear!).

David Parker as Leisl dancing 'Sixteen Going on Seventeen'
(Photo courtesy of Steven Schreiber)

If you’re a New Yorker, you can see Fraulein Maria, yourself for FREE this Saturday at 3 p.m. at Lincoln Center Out of Doors. Otherwise, you can always go visit a local piano bar where you’ll no doubt see men of all ages and types drunkenly crooning about their favorite things.

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