Sesame Street Live -- Let’s Dance! WOW! What a great show! I hadn’t told my kids (5 year old boy/girl twins) that we were invited to the show until about an hour before we needed to leave and I got a lot of “I don’t want to go” resistance at first (they were having too much fun playing outside). Before the show even started, my kids were dancing in their seats to the house music. We didn’t sit still the entire show!
The same as previous Sesame Street Live productions, they work hard to incorporate songs that appeal to both children and adults. I loved this show’s take on the Styx classic Mr. Roboto and the homage to Flash Dance complete with Cookie Monster in leg warmers! They both went over the kids’ heads, but they were dancing in the aisles just the same! I think my kids’ favorite was a song which Elmo encourages us to use our imagination to dance like various animals including a duck, an elephant and a rabbit. Though the Itsy, Bitsy Spider was a close second.
There was a lot of character and audience interaction in this show. The characters come out into the audience and dance in the aisles and encourage the children to do the same several times during the show. While there were very few, if any, bad seats at the Westchester County Center in White Plains, I would highly recommend getting seats in the front sections of the floor or the lower rows of the risers. Your children will definitely want to go and dance with the characters and that opportunity happens several times during the show. If you want your children to be able to fully interact with the characters, you’ll want to avoid the balcony.
I also appreciated the fact that while there were definitely opportunities to purchase souvenirs, there was much less pressure than at other children’s productions we’ve been to in the past. I can honestly say, I am actually MORE likely to buy something for my kids when there aren’t people walking through the seats calling out about what they are selling making my kids beg me for something. So that was greatly appreciated! Also, they made a point to ask that anyone who had purchased balloons during intermission (the only time they were selling the Elmo/Cookie Monster balloons) to put them under their seats so they didn’t block anyone else’s view. I love that they were encouraging everyone to be considerate of one another.
Now, as to the appropriate age group for the show, I have to confess, I was a little concerned that my kids were too old to enjoy it this year. However, I think they actually enjoyed it this year more than previous years. There were tons of children between the ages of about 18 months and maybe 7 years old – and all of them were dancing up a storm the entire show! It was a great evening and I’d take the kids again in a heartbeat. If you have the opportunity to see the show, I highly recommend it!
