DaytonDailyNews.com

DAYTON — When it comes to notable Dayton performing arts debuts, the one by Rhythm in Shoes would be hard to top. It ended with the audience buzzing over what it had just seen and heard.

Hardly anyone in the Victoria Theatre knew much about the music and dance company when it took the stage with the Ithaca, N.Y., band The Horseflies on Jan. 17, 1990. It was day four of the eight-day Viva Victoria festival celebrating the theater's reopening.

They danced, sang, made their own music, revealed a consistently smart, but also funny edge, and weren't like anyone else. They were originals.

Almost 19 years later, without fanfare, the Shoes have announced that they will exit at the end of the 2008-09 season.

Co-founder and director Sharon Leahy doesn't want to say much about that beyond four little words — "the time is right."

She is glad, however, to talk about the company's 10th annual "Holiday on Thin Ice" cabaret show coming up Friday and Saturday, Dec. 12 and 13, at Gilly's

"I was just Googling Carmen Miranda when you called. It should be pretty easy to figure out at least part of what we have in mind," she said.

The Shoes aren't exactly onstage formalists in any venue, but the Gilly's shows always tend to be even looser and freer.

This year's program, as usual, "will include great tapping, clogging, music and song," she added. "There will also be sociopolitical comment, because we can do it at this show. We love to lampoon whatever is popular. This year some off those topics are vampires, pirates, bailouts and Sarah Palin.

"The Rockettes always make an appearance and there's always a barroom scene on Christmas night."

Figures encountered there in past shows add up to a who's who of "Holiday on Thin Ice."

They've included; Martha Stewart, Orville Wright discussing aviation with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Mrs. Claus on being a Christmas Eve widow, Steve Bartman (the Chicago fan who hurt his team's chances when he interfered with play by trying to catch a foul ball when the Cubs were just five outs from going to the World Series), John Ashcroft, Mark Light, Jesus, and Paris Hilton with Nicole Ritchie.

Vampires are obvious choices this year, but why pirates? "Our pirates are looking for a bailout. It's all great fun," Leahy said. Her husband and co-director, Rick Good, describes the holiday show this way: "Put Bing Crosby in a bowl, throw in a few Muppets, add a bottle of rum and bake it with some 'Mad TV.' "

Good does most of the sketch writing. "He gets to go off on his fabulous writing for all of us," said Leahy, who finds musical inspiration for the show in the nearest drug store.

"I must own 50 Christmas CDs. I buy them for $4.99 at Walgreens, Rite Aid and CVS. I get ideas for other songs and go find those on iTunes."

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2377 or tmorris@DaytonDailyNews.com

How to go

What: Rhythm in Shoes in 10th and final "Holiday on Thin Ice"

When: 7 and 9:30 p.m. Dec. 12 and 13

Where: Gilly's, 132 S. Jefferson St.

Tickets: $20

Call: (937) 226-7463 or visit www.rythminshoes.org.

SHARON LEAHY ON . . .

. . . WHY RHYTHM IN SHOES IS HANGING THEM UP: "Is anyone in this town doing anything that's not going into debt?" she asked in reference to budget deficits for arts groups including her company. "That's not acceptable for us."

. . . WHAT'S NEXT FOR:

Leahy and Good: "We're working on this show, going to Las Vegas for Christmas (to see Nate Cooper perform), then coming back to work on 'Brother Wolf' with The Human Race Theatre. We're living like artists: working on the next thing that's right, the next thing that's in front of us; not worrying about sustaining an institution. It feels a lot better."

Gina Burgei: The former company associate director is exploring her future career options. Leahy said she wouldn't be part of this year's "Holiday on Thin Ice."

Nate Cooper: The former company star who is playing the Fool on the Hill in "Love," Cirque du Soleil's Las Vegas tribute to the Beatles — "He's going to be doing that show for a long time," Leahy said of her son's long-term contract with that production.

Emma Leahy-Good: A Josie Award winner as Dayton's Female Dancer of the Year last year at 21, is considering a move to Louisiana. "She loves traditional culture. Louisiana is rich with music, dance, family, food and culture, plus, they speak French," Leahy said.

"Holiday on Thin Ice:" Leahy said young adult members of the company's following have been particularly interested in the future of the December show, "because they make up a large percentage of the ticket buyers. All I can say is that if someone wants to keep it alive, it will live on and I'll serve as a consultant."

A STOCKING FULL OF MEMORIES FROM PAST HOTI ("HOLIDAYS ON THIN ICE") AT GILLY'S:

• Nate Cooper, in a tutu, as the Sugarplum Fairy, partnered by the Dayton Ballet's Justin Gibbs.

• Sheila Ramsey as a female Santa feeling low as a result of needing to seek corporate underwriting for Christmas because donations were down. Poor Santa. In the show that year, Dec. 25 was known as "the Pizza Hut/Verizon Christmas."

• Rick Good's original design for the giant's belt in a holiday mummer's play. From it dangled a plethora of painted Barbie dolls, upside down.

• The dancers, accustomed to wider open spaces, struggling to stay on the tiny Gilly's stage (every year).

• The man who came in the back door of the club from the bus station one year and wandered onto the stage during the show.

• The drippy ice machine in the backstage room that flooded Emma's tap shoes, which she discovered just before she was supposed to go on for a solo.

• The company gift exchange every Friday of rehearsal.

• A bat flying around the club throughout one show.

OTHER UPCOMING RHYTHM IN SHOES PERFORMANCES

Jan. 29-Feb. 15, 2009: In the musical "Brother Wolf" with The Human Race Theatre at The Loft.

March 5-6, 2009: With Dallas Chief Eagle, champion Lakota hoop dancer, at Kennedy Union Boll Theatre, University of Dayton.