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If watching fictional gay gangster Vito Spatafore shimmying around a bar with a bunch of guy pals to the tune “It’s Raining Men” is your idea of fun, the new Williamsburg dance show, “Sopranos Live!,” might be the perfect night out for you.

Performed by the classically trained members of The Love Show troupe, “Sopranos Live!” uses interpretative dance to recreate episodes from the current season of the HBO mob drama, “The Sopranos,” on Sunday nights at Savalas. Each free performance is followed by a screening of that night’s installment of the acclaimed series.

“I watch the show and take notes, then I write up a script. I choreograph the dances based on the songs that seem appropriate for the mood of what’s happening,” choreographer/ teacher/bartender Angela Hariell told GO Brooklyn in a phone interview Monday.

Hariell says the troupe will continue to perform its versions of current episodes until the season ends later this spring. After that, they will go back and do re-runs from the previous five seasons. She predicts her show will run until the audience dwindles or the dancers stop having a good time.

So, what is the biggest challenge in adapting to dance a long-running series about moody mobsters?

“I want it to always be a surprise how we interpret a mood or a situation, so making it really fun every single week and making it look different from the one the week before,” Hariell replied, offering as an example her interpretation of the recent episode in which Vito (played on the TV show by Bay Ridge native Joe Gannascoli) finds himself attracted to a nice-guy diner cook in New Hampshire.

“In the scenes where Vito is around the man he is falling for, we try to make it funny and entertaining, but surprising. When the cook puts his hand on top of Vito’s, we play that [James Blunt] song: ‘You’re beautiful! You’re beautiful, it’s true!’ And the two of them have a duet, and then later, on when they get in their fight, we have them slow-motion punching each other and fighting to ‘You ARE soooo beautiful to me!’ ”

So far, none of the actors from the TV series — many of whom have roots in Brooklyn — have dropped by for the show, but Hariell says she hopes Dominic Chianese, a.k.a Uncle Junior, might come see it, since he is a family friend of her creative partner, David Slone.

“Every week, there are more people, and it seems like it’s really building into something,” Hariell said. “We’re just really having fun with it. My dancers and I laugh sometimes while we’re performing, because the material is so funny.”


The Love Show’s “Sopranos Live!” is performed on Sundays at 7:30 pm at Savalas [285 Bedford Ave. at Grand Street in Williamsburg, (718) 599-5565]. The performance is free and followed by a screening of that night’s installment of HBO’s “The Sopranos.” For more information about “Sopranos Live!,” visit the Web site www.sopranoslive.com.

©2006 Community Newspaper Group