Vaughn Schoonmaker
Kylie Minogue's Aphrodite tour wrapped its 3rd consecutive night at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City Wednesday night to a packed house of mostly gay men, with approximately 5 percent of the audience consisting of her other Tri-State fans (though don't give me to that for accuracy since it could have been more like 3 percent).
Kylie Minogue has down the art of walking in slow motion. Amidst her sultry hip swivels, belly dances and fairy-like arm gestures, the vivacious Australian made use of her enormous classical Rome-styled stage by walking up and kill it in perfectly beautiful slow motion on quite a few occasions. While this may appear a little observation, it grabbed my attention because it provided a large line to the active and astonishing spectacles surrounding her throughout the dazzling two-hour set.
The most famous expression of the performance, besides the beautiful singer in several states of goddess attire and her slo-mo expertise, was the absolute size of the present production. Kylie Minogue is a family name in many parts of the world, especially in the U.K. where she has been known to deal out arenas. In the United States, however, her following is significantly smaller. When she announced that she would take her massively successful Aphrodite tour to the U.S. for a toned-down version of the show, I expected, well, a toned-down version of the show.
But I cannot think how the record could have been any more composite and epic. Ballrooms in New York tend to be reserved for performers whose shows don't want the high jinks of an arena stage. Kylie and her crew managed to take the comparatively little distance of Hammerstein seem Madison Square Garden-size even before Kylie emerged from under the point in a giant seashell ( la Botticelli's painting depicting of the Greek goddess of jazz in "The Birth of Venus").
She performed her hits including "All the Lovers," "Can't Get You Outta My Head," "Come Into My Existence" and "On a Night Like This." Occasionally hitting notes worthy of an opera house, Kylie was consistently surrounded by 12 to 15 backup dancers, most of whom were scantily clad men more chiseled than any Greek god. Everyone on the stage changed costumes no fewer than 5 times, covering the gamut of styles from classical statues to ripped old-school street clothes to Las Vegas show boys and girls.
In presence of the towering Greek temple columns sprawled across the stage, there was no doubt that Kylie was good at home as a bearing in classic mythology. The pop icon and breast cancer survivor reminded us that she is not going anywhere but up and that our expectations of her can be great, but she will, as any goddess would, prove to us she's even greater than we could have dreamed.
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