Earlier this week we brunched with some of the cast of “Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks” at Club 21.
The Broadway play “Six Dance Lessons in Six Week,” written by Richard Alfieri, has been adapted into a film directed by the talented Arthur Allan Seidelman. It featured an ensemble cast including Gena Rowlands, Cheyenne Jackson, Jacki Weaver, Rita Moreno, Anthony Zerbe, Kathleen Rose Perkins and Simon Miller. The film depicts the unlikely friendship between a homosexual dance instructor (Cheyenne) and an elderly southern widow (Gena). The two main characters bicker and argue constantly, only to realize that they’re more similar than they assumed. With each week and each new dance their bond strengthens thanks to their wonderful on-screen chemistry.
During the Q&A Director Arthur Seidelman said this about the film:
It has been done in 24 countries, 15 different languages, everywhere from Tokyo to Tel Aviv, all over the world because it obviously strikes a chord and speaks in very entertaining terms about serious issues. It’s about pre-judging people, it about being fooled by the external and not reaching out to experience what we really are as individuals and what joins us together and our common journey and it expands the definition of love and comradeship and friendship.
Seidelman also spoke about why he chose film as his medium and his experience with leading lady Gena Rowlands:
Because Gena did not wanna do a play, I said to Ricahrd, ‘I guess we have no choice, we’re gonna have to make a film because that’s the only way we’re gonna get Gena.’ It took a few years because Richard, who is a brilliant writer and full of integrity refused to compromise and refused to do it any other way, but the way it needed to be done. Gena Rowlands is one of the great film artists of this century and the previous century. When people ask me how to capsulize what Gena Rowlands is as an artist, the best way I have of describing it is that it is impossible for Gena to be dishonest on screen. She is not capable of anything but the truth. Every moment on screen is total honesty. It’s a distinct honor in my career to say that I’ve worked with Gena Rowlands.
Gena Rowland also spoke on what drew her to the film:
This movie showed how much love there is in the world, that you can love anybody or you can love your mother, or your sister or your friend or somebody you don’t agree with their lifestyle or your dog. Love is love and there’s plenty of it here, if we will embrace it and I thought that the author really did embrace it and it touched me very much and I was very happy to be invited to partake in it.
The third member of the cast, Simon Miller , had a dual role as Robert in the film as well as a producer. Simon Miller has been on both “Gossip Girl” and “Vampire Diaries” and intends to continue producing and acting. Miller said the best part about the film was working with Gena Rowlands:
The best part of my job was rehearsing with Gena, because everyday before shooting, I’d go to her trailer to work on the scene and it was a master class in acting because like Arthur said, she will not say a false moment. I’d run out to go talk to Richard and come back to Gena and ask, ‘well what if it’s like this ? ‘ and then she’d agree to say the line. It was amazing, she wouldn’t say it if it didn’t seem right ot her, so that was really impressive.
The film opens in Theaters December 12, in time for the holiday season and will remind you to value your loved ones.
-Nishat Baig