'A rousing revue with a wink and a smile'

Thursday, March 25, 2010
By Carole Perkins
Special to Go Triad

Eight years ago, while performing on a ship for Celebrity Cruise Lines, dancer Jim Weaver lifted his partner adagio style into the air and immediately felt a searing pain rip down his lower back.

The former "Fosse" performer and choreographer to Dolly Parton and the Mandrell sisters finished the show -- and his contract -- in agonizing pain.

His surgery and move to Greensboro changed his life, but also opened a new door.

"After having surgery, I was nervous to return to dancing, which I had done my whole career," said Weaver, who moved back to Greensboro to be with family. "... so I decided to pursue something else until I was completely healed."

Weaver worked a series of managerial jobs, including one at Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores in Greensboro, but also stayed creatively busy helping write plays and working with Joe Nierle at The Open Space Cafe Theatre in Greensboro. Each step led him closer to his dream of creating his own "Fosse"-inspired show, "Brouhaha Revue."

"From the beginning I told everyone I spoke with about this idea I had to do a show with a sort of cabaret element with burlesque and comedy, too," says Weaver, seated on a sofa at his brick duplex. "I got interested in the idea because I did 'Fosse' on tour and was fascinated with everything Bob Fosse did."

Weaver offers two versions of his show: "Club Brouhaha," a 45-minute set for nightclub venues, and "Brouhaha Revue," the two-hour full production for theatrical settings. The March 13 performance at Warehouse 29 in Greensboro sold out by show time, making it the third out of four shows to sell out.

"The Brouhaha Revue" will be presented again Saturday at Warehouse 29 in Greensboro.

"The show moves from pop opera to classic burlesque as well as 'Chicago'--style production numbers," Weaver says. "The show has a lot of different elements to it, and we want to make it clear since in the beginning the word burlesque got mentioned and people thought there would be nudity, but there's not."

The cast consists of Weaver, his sister Tiffani Gosserand, who performs in the show when she's not managing bands and designing Web sites, and co-choreographer Katrina Delisi, a classically trained ballerina and student at UNCG studying modern dance. Weaver first met Delisi when he interviewed her for a job at Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores.

"In walks this beautiful girl," Weaver recalls. "I knew immediately that she was a dancer by the way she moved and the way she dressed.

"We went to lunch, and I told her this idea. She had a lot of her own ideas to add, so that's where it all started to form."

A 30-minute sold-out show on Halloween night last year at The Open Space Cafe Theatre convinced them that the Triad was ready for "a rousing revue with a wink and a smile."

"It's taking the classical styles of what burlesque, vaudeville and cabaret brought to the theater and putting a new spin on it," Delisi says. "I do aerial dancing, and [I] dance with fans and fabric sweeps. We use glowing hula hoops and even have a fire breather. We're thinking of doing pole dancing, which is very hard."

Gosserand pulls a pair of black satin shorts and a red corset from a makeshift closet next to a mannequin named Brou-hilda, who stands in the center of a stage Weaver built in his home.

"This is what I wear when I do the Grand Finale, 'Hey Big Spender,'" says Gosserand.

"Oh, and look at this," she says, stroking a fake red fur coat. "I wear this until the end of the show, and no one knows I'm wearing the corset and shorts underneath."

Aside from the sexy outfits, Weaver adds that the recession has also helped attendance because it offers an escape.

"Once you get in that theater you can forget everything," Weaver says. "It's an answer to a prayer and a dream come true. The best part about it is it is a cumulative kind of effect of all of us coming together with our passions. We didn't know when we started this it would be part of a trend ---- although what we're doing is different."

"And better," Gosserand interjects. "Like the time you were dancing with the mannequin and her wig came off."

"And you rubbed her head," Delisi said with a laugh.

"I finished the number and rubbed her bald head while pointing at my own saying, 'Who am I to judge?' " Weaver says. "The audience loved it."



Contact Carole Perkins at CPGuilford@aol.com.