General Mischief Dance Theatre’s Capers Aloft: Mischief, Mayhem and Bungee Cords attempts to create a dance-theatre hybrid where the grace of dance and the plotline of theatre meld to become an aesthetically pleasing performance of airborne words and spinning stories. Yet, despite the clear energy, commitment, and potential of the cast, the simple and repetitive choreography gives Capers the feel of a children’s show, and does not hold an adult audience’s attention.

Running barely over an hour, Capers contained two completely separate acts: “Suite Zep” and “The Hair Clip Caper”, so named for the former’s use of Led Zeppelin music, and the latter’s focus on a murder-mystery revolving around a hair clip as a key piece of evidence. Suite Zep began with “Mischievous Welcome”, an amusing if irrelevant beginning featuring the entire company dancing about the stage with little apparent purpose, followed by a formal introduction to the play, followed by “When No One’s Watching”, an enchanting ribbon dance featuring Lisa Natoli. “When No One’s Watching” stood out as the only part of the play that had its dancers, here Lisa Natoli, in their element. Natoli here performs enthralling choreography clearly playing to her strengths as she wound herself around a ribbon attached to the ceiling. “The Hair Clip Caper” failed to do this, confusing a company of dancers-who-can-act with actors-who-can-dance. Here the dancers were uncomfortable and trying to downplay their dancing strengths to their lesser acting talents. Despite the obvious energy and effort the entire cast put in, the highlight of the plot-based second act was the incredibly long hair of the murderer, and a brief sequence in which she reenacted the killing. The second half of the first act, too, lacked strong enough choreography to be at all that engaging (for an adult audience). The entirety of this section of the performance focused on Andrea Skurr and Emily Smyth Vartanian bouncing on elastic bands attached to the ceiling in what seemed more like an enjoyable exercise class than a dance.

Despite the disappointing lack of actual dancing, however, the cast made interesting choices to enhance their “social” message. In the second part of the first act, both Andrea Skurr and Emily Smyth Vartanian smiled constantly, and laughed, childishly, throughout the performance, adding an element of amusing if frustrating energy. Certainly different from the relative stiff (if professional) unsmiling, expressionless seriousness of most dance performances, the constant smiling and laughter served as neither a relief nor a deepening of the emotional meaning of the play, and instead became a both memorable and negative aspect.

Capers Aloft runs from April 15 – 17 at the Connelly Theater (220 East 4th street), and is a perfect show for children. Fun, young, and generally joyful, the choreography makes up for immaturity with gaiety. It features all the elements of an excellent children’s music or theatre class.  The audience can’t help but want to climb ribbons and bounce from elastic chords on stage. Should Capers find a way to express the plot of the second act while using the elements from the first, with about a third as much acting, then it would truly be a play worth seeing with the whole family.