ML - Vegas Magazine

Vegas - 2015 - Issue 8 - Winter - Jennifer Lopez

Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.

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"in vegas i get to dream. the ideas i have come to life in a way they never have before." J ennifer Lopez is deep in the auditioning pro- cess for her new Las Vegas residency, All I Have. She's whit t ling t hrough hundreds of hopefuls keen to join the dance troupe, and when it comes to assess- ing t hem, Lopez is a no-nonsense critic. "I started as a dancer, so I have an eye for it. I've done it my whole life," she shrugs. Before her breakout as a booty-shaking Fly Girl on In Living Color, Lopez was a backup dancer in Janet Jackson videos and for New Kids on the Block at the 1991 American Music Awards. (In 2015, she returned to the same show, albeit as the headlining host.) Such experience has given Jennifer a pro's perspective on those rooms full of hopefuls. "Sometimes other people—the music department or my management—might like a per- son, but I'm, like, 'Oh, they're a little bit weak in this part; there's not enough technique.'" It's an approach her former dance teacher, Phil Black, would recognize. Black also schooled Madonna and John Travolta, but he has said proudly that then-budding star Lopez was a more memorable pupil than either the Material Girl or Tony Manero. Lopez, he explained, worked harder than anyone in a very competitive environ- ment. She chuckles at the mention of one of her former mentors. "It's always been my approach to performing, to work, to everything I do in life: I give it all I have," she says. "That's why it's the name of my show." Jen (her team never calls her J.Lo) is the latest pop diva to take up residency in Las Vegas: An ini- tial batch of 20 shows begins on January 20, 2016, at Planet Hollywood's Axis Theater, and the stint runs through early summer. The spectacle she is planning is likely to eclipse the recent residen- cies of two other megastars: Britney Spears, who offered only a Piece of Me, and Mariah Carey, who, through February 21, promises to take audiences ...To Infnity. "I want it to be a high-energy, Bronx kind of block party," Lopez says, her New York twang still intact, "The most exciting shows make you dance, and scream, and jump up and down. I want people to really let loose." She expects her eventual onstage team to have more than just impressive footwork. "They're bringing the story to life," Lopez says, "so they're an integral part of the show, acting a little bit, even." A residency in Vegas wasn't part of Lopez's long- term plan; it surfaced only after the entertainer performed at a sold-out show at the Colosseum on New Year's Eve 2014. A show on the Strip, she realized, was a refreshing change from the usual arenas and stadium shows. "It's a much more inti- mate experience, and it's about real performers," she says, citing Vegas legends Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. "Not everybody can really do that." A residency differs from a conven- tional tour in other ways, too: the sets, for example. Shipping a show across the world, she says, is costly and constricting: "All your creative ideas get pared back, little by little, because it gets very expensive to put everything on a boat to China or Australia. In Vegas, though, you're in one place, so I get to dream—the ideas I have [for sets] can come to life in a way they never have before. That's why some of the best shows are in Vegas." There are certain challenges in performing here, though: The dry desert air, combined with ubiquitous air-conditioning, can be punishing on a singer's vocal cords. Workaholic Dolly Parton famously agreed to a weeklong set of shows in 1981 100  vegasmagazine.com

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