I just saw what I will charitably refer to as “the most remarkable” commercial on WDBJ, the local CBS affiliate.
It depicted a couple of dozen people in colorful, skin-tight full-body suits prancing their way around what appeared to be a tiny, banked skating rink. They flitted about modern-dance style, with a variety of Marcel Marceau expressions flickering across their faces. The low-quality recording and the ridiculousness of it all left me with the slack-jawed assumption that I was seeing something between an Energizer bunny commercial and an excerpt from a forthcoming Christopher Guest movie.
After ten seconds of watching this spectacle, I became aware of a voiceover. It informed me that WDBJ sportscaster Mike Stevens would be “calling the race” for the Roanoke Ballet Theater.
That was when it clicked. My lord: it’s a modern dance interpretation of NASCAR.
So I googled. The Jefferson Center’s calendar offers the following description:
Feel the power of racing as RBT’s professional company fly around a simulated NASCAR arena. Dancers speed, dive and crash around the course and are lifted and “tuned” in the pit as the local sports announcer calls the race. Place your bets on who the winner will be as commercials flank huge projection screens, live camera crews record the pit action and local NASCAR celebrities are interviewed.
And the Roanoke Ballet writes on their website:
NASCAR Ballet centers around 20 ballet and modern dancers (who represent cars) who circle a forty foot horseshoe track that banks around the corner complete with break away railings. Three huge monitors are suspended about the dancers heads. One of which serve as the “TV” as the local Channel 7 sportscaster, Mike Stevens, calls the race live and it is projected onto the monitor. Mike will be joined by NASCAR drivers, who he interviews during the production. Another monitor, relays live footage of the “pit” as dancers lift, rotate and spin one another during the “pit stop”. The third screen continuously plays pre-made commercials by sponsoring companies. As the dancers gracefully careen around the track, collide and are rebuilt, logos of sponsoring companies are displayed prominently all over their bodies.
[…]
We are teaming many different art forms together with an original score of sound effects blended with instruments, live interviews and rampant commercialism to try to recreate the aesthetic of NASCAR. This production will inundate the viewer with sight, sound, color and even smell (pyrotechnics).
But the text doesn’t do it justice. I wish I could provide a screenshot of the commercial. It’s really something you’ve got to see to disbelieve.