“A Glorious Mess of a Piece”: Fontessa and Friends
In 1982, New York Times dance critic Jennifer Dunning reviewed AAADT’s new production by Louis Johnson: “Fontessa and Friends is a glorious mess of a piece, jammed with ballet jokes, nutty characters, and one of the funniest pas de deux in dance. Set to a stew of composers from Khachaturian to the Modern Jazz Quartet, the dance takes the glamorous, haughty Fontessa, played with gusto by Donna Wood, through a series of encounters with beruffled, scantily clad clowns, two lyrical lovers, a madcap master of ceremonies and a muscle-rippling hunk of manhood who teaches her to be a woman.”
In 1982, <em>New York Times</em> dance critic Jennifer Dunning reviewed AAADT’s new production by Louis Johnson: “<em>Fontessa and Friends</em> is a glorious mess of a piece, jammed with ballet jokes, nutty characters, and one of the funniest pas de deux in dance. Set to a stew of composers from Khachaturian to the Modern Jazz Quartet, the dance takes the glamorous, haughty Fontessa, played with gusto by Donna Wood, through a series of encounters with beruffled, scantily clad clowns, two lyrical lovers, a madcap master of ceremonies and a muscle-rippling hunk of manhood who teaches her to be a woman.”