When Adam Cooper launched into the first verse of "Singin' in the Rain" on the stage of Tokyu Theatre Orb back in 2014, a palpable ripple of excitement ran through the Tokyo audience — and this writer, who was there, certainly felt it, too.
"I didn't expect the response we got," says Cooper, recalling the song his character Don Lockwood sings in the musical of the same name. "At the end, people were cheering and standing up ... it was very un-Japanese in a way. I thought we must be doing something special to get that kind of reaction."
He's being modest. Cooper radiated charisma in that performance, as he has throughout his varied career at the top of the dance world — with or without songs. He received acclaim for his role as the Swan/Stranger in the all-male contemporary dance hit "Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake" from 1995, and a broader audience likely saw him perform a moving vignette from that piece at the end of the 2000 film "Billy Elliot."