Dante+Dancing with the Stars=Funniest Thing Ever!

So this weekend my goal was to immerse myself in all Florence has to offer culturally. As I explained in my last post I joined a library, I got a haircut, and I went to a festival. Well last night was the culmination of all things awesome about this weekend. My landlord Michele had stopped by my apartment last week to have me sign some papers for him so that the government here knows I'm not a terrorist. While he was over he gave me a pamphlet for an event put on by the Arthur Murray School of Dance in Florence. If you are not familiar with them, Arthur Murray schools are dance academies where you can take ballroom dancing classes. They offer everything from swing to salsa. The school was putting on a performance of Dante's Inferno and Purgatorio (because we all know no one cares about Paradiso except Cervigni). The event was free and I love dancing, so I decided I was definitely going to go. My landlord had told me it was going to be a modern dance performance, so I was thinking modern dance like people not wearing shoes and doing interpretive dance, or maybe at least having ballet shoes on. I was totally wrong. I mean, I knew Arthur Murray specialized in ballroom dance, but honestly, how are you going to turn that into an interpretation of Dante? Picture this: people of the entire age spectrum, from infant (there was a baby dressed as an angel who got carried around the stage) to past expiration date. The majority of the performers were students of the "retired" age group who are taking ballroom dancing classes for fun. Imagine if all the worst participants from Dancing with the Stars (like Cloris Leachman, Kate Gosslin, and Steve Wozniak) all got together to put on a show. There you have two hours of my Sunday evening. Watching people portray characters from La divina commedia while ballroom dancing. Here's an example: my landlord, who failed to mention that he was going to be in the performance, was Cicero, one of the residents of limbo (my memory is currently failing me, but possibly in the noble castle?). He waltzed around the stage with one of the female residents of this same circle of Hell. Another example: Paolo and Francesca (played by two of the professional dancers) performing a very sensual waltz/foxtrot/tango combo. Honestly, I don't think I'm doing this spectacle justice, but if I find any Youtube clips I will attach them to a comment here.
The show's ending was by far the most ridiculous part of the evening. All the characters arrived on stage to do a final twirl about, when a great light shines and in comes Beatrice. For those of you not familiar with Dante, Beatrice is the woman that Dante idolized and loved. She shows up in all of his works and he pretty much dedicated his life to her. So Beatrice shows up and she is supposed to be this beautiful woman who shines with a heavenly glow, like the Virgin Mary. This Beatrice, to my surprise, was about 100 years old, with stiff joints and no dancing ability. Let me add that the man playing Dante was probably 30, with long flowing locks and a goatee. This woman had to be at least 50 years older than him and was his love interest! Why???? She couldn't even dance she was so old. They tried to do a little shuffle ball change, but I thought she was going to break. At the end of their painful performance, there was the curtain call, and everyone took their bows about three times and got flowers, etc. But then, of course, because this makes total sense, the whole cast breaks out into Thriller, including old Beatrice (who couldn't do any of the steps, so she just kept turning in circles). I know that this was a serious performance, but I totally lost it. I could not take Dante for Ballroom seriously. Honestly, I don't know how the directors of the studio came up with this. For real, this is a performance I will never ever forget, not because it was beautiful and moving, but because it was absolutely, without a doubt, one of the most ridiculous spectacles I have ever seen in my life.