Friday, March 8, 2002 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific

Dance helped keep broadcasts footloose

By Moira MacDonald
Seattle Times movie critic

	THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor perform a song-and-dance number in "Moulin Rouge," one of the five films nominated for this year's best-picture Oscar.

Hardly anything in Oscar history has caused as much controversy as the dance numbers. (Think Rob Lowe and Snow White). And while the show's producers are busy dithering about whether they should come back or not, here's one vote for the affirmative, especially in a year that saw the return of the musical, in the form of "Moulin Rouge."

Let's get this straight: Whatever the show's producers may think, the primary purpose of the Oscars for the rest of us is to see what everyone is wearing (hello, Bjork), to find out which big-name stars get all weepy and annoying (hello, Gwyneth) when given an award, and finally, of lesser importance, to see who won what.

And second, not to get impertinent or anything, but the Oscars are indeed a variety show, and a pretty fabulous one at that. So here's why the dance numbers should be returned:

1. Because everybody remembers Rob Lowe dancing with Snow White in 1988, or Teri Garr piloting a plane with tap-dancing chorines on the wings in 1985, or that "Life Is Beautiful" flamenco-ish number. Meanwhile, do you remember who won, say, best actor in 1996?

2. Because the dance numbers can provide Oscar's most wonderfully head-scratching moments - for example, the appearance of the "Lord of the Dance" ensemble on the Oscar telecast in 1997. (Not that you need dance for this: consider Colin Powell's mysterious appearance last year.)

3. Because anyone with the nerve to wear a dress featuring a metal breastplate to the Oscars, as longtime Oscar choreographer Debbie Allen did a few years back, should be rewarded.

4. Because dance, unlike tediously scripted banter on the TelePrompTer, is unpredictable, and sometimes really cool mistakes happen. At the 1977 Oscars, during Jane Powell's performance of the nominated song "The Slipper and the Rose Waltz" (and try humming a few bars from that one, why don't you?), a large fabric drop fell on a dancer who, God bless him, continued bravely with the choreography despite being entangled in satin.

5. Because without dance, we wouldn't have had the most charming moment of the recent past Oscars: Stanley Donen, who while accepting his honorary Oscar in 1998 saw fit to do a little soft shoe. So — would the Zanucks have cut him?

6. Because it's easier to rail on the dance numbers than to pay close attention during the Animated Short Subject awards.

7. Because the Cirque de Soleil is coming to the Oscars this year, and they don't want to be the only people in leotards.

8. Because when you look at a typical Oscar dance-number extravaganza (for example, one of my personal favorites: the 1987 ceremony, at which a bunch of gold-clad dancers posed as life-sized Oscars, and then performed, on their pedestals, a precision dance routine set to the music of "A Chorus Line") and realize that a bunch of people sat around a table and thought it up - well, it just makes you feel better about your place in the universe.

9. Because the Academy Award ceremony is not about good taste, or appropriateness, or moving things along swiftly, or doing away with vestiges of the past. It is about spectacle - and what better way to convey that than with a stageful of excessively sequined toe-tappers?