“We really paid attention to that,” he said, noting that the vessel’s flexible theater, configurable in three formats, was built to accommodate a range of possibilities. (“We are bringing a sea change to cruise activities and experiences,” its website promises.) Richard Kilman, the company’s vice president of entertainment, said market research on “prospective sailors” revealed that when it came to live performance, people “wanted to be in on something new, groundbreaking, not in the mainstream yet.” Since its founding in 2014, Virgin Voyages has marketed itself as a kind of industry disrupter. 6, passengers - who must be vaccinated and test negative for the coronavirus before embarking - will be able to wander into the Red Room and get swept up in the pulse of “Untitled DanceShowPartyThing.”Ĭreated by Taj and Pinkleton, with Hitt joining them in 2018 as associate director and choreographer, the production is what Pinkleton calls “something between an old-school variety show and a great night out at a club.” At a time when both the cruise industry and live performance have been buffeted by the pandemic and are just bouncing back, the creative team has plunged into the challenges of making a work at sea as part of a large corporate enterprise.Īs it turned out, they had been recruited precisely for their potential to break the cruise ship dance-show mold. When the boat departs for its inaugural Bahamas cruise on Oct. That exercise, which began in 2017, has now become a full-fledged, hourlong production aboard the Scarlet Lady, the first Virgin ship to set sail for paying customers (or “sailors,” in the company’s lingo).
“We were like, ‘This seems like a fun exercise,’” Pinkleton added, “and dared ourselves to present a pretty authentic version of what we would like to make.” “We said, ‘Yeah, we’ll accept that challenge and come up with something that surely won’t fly,’” Taj said. The Cartel’s queer, glam, all-bodies-welcome aesthetic also seemed contrary to what Taj knew of cruise ship dancing - “heteronormative, straight-straight, musical theater dance stuff.” Still, she and Pinkleton answered the call for a pitch. In the group’s first and signature work, “OntheFloor,” which Taj and Pinkleton directed, dancers maneuver around and among a standing audience, their irrepressible energy an invitation to join in. (One current, high-profile example: the American Ballet Theater shows presented by Celebrity Cruises.) The Dance Cartel, by contrast, has always blasted through proscenium conventions. Dance shows on cruise ships typically take place on proscenium stages, for seated, stationary audiences. It seemed improbable to Taj and Pinkleton that Virgin Voyages, a joint venture of Bain Capital and Branson’s Virgin Group, would want what they had to offer. “I have (very briefly) joined a conga line.” “I have seen 500 upscale Americans dance the Electric Slide,” David Foster Wallace wrote in the opening paragraph of his 1996 essay “ Shipping Out,” about the week he spent on a Caribbean cruise. The words “cruise ship entertainment” might bring to mind a Broadway revue, a Vegas-style cabaret, or a sun-drenched deck filled with line-dancing vacationers. “I think we had a very narrow idea of what making a show for a ship would mean.” “We definitely had a moment of: A cruise ship - did they get the right people?” Pinkleton said, recalling his confusion when he and Taj, who are represented by ICM Partners, were invited by their agents to pitch a show to Virgin Voyages, a new adults-only cruise line founded by the British billionaire Richard Branson.