The Brooklyn Rail

How do you win at dance? A cursory google will tell you that, in dance team competitions, at least, a detailed scoring rubric may be applied to tally the execution of skills, synchronization, creativity, complexity, and difficulty. Or, in the case of So You Think You Can Dance, the winning dancer collects the most votes from a TV audience and judges indicating their status as “America’s Favorite Dancer.” Jakob Karr, alumnus of SYTYCD, and choreographer, director, and star of the theatrical dance performance Ain’t Done Bad, may not be referring to either of these measurements of success, but he does give every indication of being in it to win it.

Ain’t Done Bad premiered in 2021 at the Orlando International Fringe Theatre Festival, and has since nestled into the airy Pershing Square Signature Center for its New York City debut and a luxurious two-month run. By setting the show to the music of self-described “outlaw country” performer Orville Peck, Karr provides his audience with a comforting sense of continuity, as if Peck were a mysterious narrator hidden from view. (It seems a fitting role for Peck, who typically performs in decorative face masks.) First and foremost, however, Ain’t Don’t Bad feels like a vehicle for the otherworldly physical capabilities of its cast. There is seemingly nothing they couldn’t execute, at any level of complexity or velocity. (Joshua Escover pulls out a breezy quintuple-ish pirouette in the second half that can only be described as deeply satisfying to watch.) Ain’t Done Bad tiptoes right up to the line of showboating, but grounds itself in the earnestness of its narrative and its effort.

In essence, this is a queer coming-out story for a son character (Karr). The son and his family members (played by Adrian Lee, Megumi Iwama, and Ian Spring) begin their story dancing together, pushing through space in rounded, swirling shapes. Their costumes are equally subdued, including slacks and dresses of a nondescript greenish-gray color. Tall scenery pieces resemble broken-down picket fences, imposing irregular spikes on both sides of the drably lit stage.

The pair of dancers playing the son’s friends (Yusaku Komori and Jordan Lombardi) execute flashier, more staccato choreography than the family, jumping and kicking into big straight legged shapes with the occasional hip gyration. They wear leather and rhinestones, and shepherd the son into his new, outwardly queer life. As the son embodies and celebrates his identity, the stage follows: lighting shifts to violet, which glints off of Karr’s newly-donned rhinestone denim jacket. Overall, Karr’s choreography emphasizes a continuous flow of movement, rather than building momentum. (Perhaps Ain’t Done Bad behaves more like a musical than modern dance in this way, keeping the audience’s eyes busy at all times.) Mirrors figure prominently throughout, with the dancers stopping periodically to peer at themselves in a trio of tall, rolling panels. It feels a little on the nose as a method to convey self-reflection, and creates an odd glare from lighting coming in from the wings, but still offers a pleasing, shifting geometry in conjunction with the other set pieces. The consistent aural presence of Orville Peck suggests queerness as otherness or outlaw, and costuming choices mask or display the authentic self.

After intermission, fog wafts across the stage and the son transitions into flirtatious and seductive duets with characters representing his lovers (Escover, in addition to other dancers recast from the first half). The momentum continues throughout this section; it’s tempting to wish for the dancers to slow their roll and grant the audience time to enjoy the development of new relationships and dynamics on the stage. The show does pause ever so briefly and sweetly as the pair falls asleep, slumped together on chairs downstage.

A kitchen table makes recurring appearances, with different characters sitting to perform variations of a hunching, spine-twisting sequence. Eventually, the son comes home and, after a hesitant moment, both parents embrace him and offer the lover a seat at the table. Ain’t Done Bad closes on a bright, uncomplicated note, with the ensemble dancing together buoyantly.

Currently, Ain’t Done Bad exists in an arena of concert dance where the success of a creative work is bound by subjectivity and not by numeric scoring. But, to my eye, Karr and his cast still win here. Indeed, the performance may lean more heavily on physicality and heart than it does on nuance. But, its broad strokes leave space for the audience to resonate with and root for it, earning the show a standing ovation on the evening I happened to see it.