It’s a variation on the classic nightmare: finding yourself onstage in a dance recital — but you don’t know how to dance. And that’s exactly what happens in “Untrained,” the cheeky, fun show that opened Tuesday night at BAM.
In it, Melbourne-based Lucy Guerin creates a one-hour show with four men: two pro dancers, and two without any dance training. Ninety Aussies applied for the “no experience required” job and she chose Michael Dunbar, a tall bear of a communications designer, and Jake Shackleton, a pianist turned environmental engineer.
Along with pros Alisdair Macindoe and Ross McCormack, they worked together for a week and instead of a nightmare, got a free trip to the US.
The show’s premise is straightforward. There’s a taped square in the center. Lined up on the floor at the sides are white slips of paper with instructions on them, like the set list for a rock band. The guys, all wearing sweats and novelty T-shirts, form a line, enter the square one by one, do the task from the slip and head to the other side.
The tasks are simple at the start and slowly build in complexity. The trouble for the amateurs starts when Guerin asks them to balance on one leg while looking up. They then move on to ballet steps and complex choreography, with predictable results.
The pros, Macindoe and McCormack, are indeed well-trained — versatile dancers in styles from ballet to break dancing. (Full disclosure: Macindoe’s worked with Guerin before, McCormack hasn’t.) But it’s surprising how well the amateurs Dunbar and Shackleton cope onstage, and the audience cheers them on.
All four have great personalities. They’re amiable, funny and bright; Guerin picked people who could do more than dance. There are moments of touching honesty, especially when they pause and talk about the one thing that worries them.
Guerin also adds other nondance-related tasks that put all four on equal footing — imitating a beat box, say, or drawing a picture of one another. That’s where things get a little muddled. With a contrast as clear as trained versus untrained, too many equal-opportunity tasks lose the point.
But the entertaining hour goes by in no time. And by the end, when they do their final dance together, you might keep your eye on the amateurs instead of the pros, because their moves are so unexpected.