Days – Page 3 – COOPER GENERAL NEWS

LONDON – A huge truck traffic jam in the port of Dover in England continued to ease on Saturday, days after France lifted a border blockade imposed over fears of a fast-spreading variant of the coronavirus that has already spread to Europe and Japan .

Up to 6,000 trucks had lined up at the height of the day-long traffic jam, and many drivers spent a bleak Christmas in their vehicles when France demanded that everyone crossing the border provide evidence of a negative coronavirus test.

“It was shocking to see things like this happening in a G7 country like Britain,” said Benjamin Richtzenhain, a traveler who crossed the Channel on Thursday. He said authorities had poor communication with those stuck in traffic and that access to water, bathrooms and blankets was restricted.

The misery in the harbor added to a general feeling of darkness that permeated the holiday season in the country. Christmas came barely a week after the government announced the presence of a rapidly spreading variant of coronavirus that swept the country and imposed widespread lockdowns and other severe restrictions.

A short-term Brexit deal with the European Union on Thursday meant the UK narrowly avoided getting out of the bloc without an agreement, but also brought home a sense of isolation. And dozen of countries have restricted travel from the UK in hopes of ruling out the new variant of the virus and disrupting plans during one of Europe’s biggest holidays.

Despite the new restrictions around the world, the virus variant has already spread to France, Spain and Japan. According to Japanese media, the Japanese government banned non-Japanese nationals from entering the country on Saturday to prevent the new tribe from spreading.

On Saturday morning, officials from the UK Transport Department said that since Wednesday when authorities prepared the tests, at least 1,600 vehicles had remained in traffic jams near the port, while at least 8,000 had crossed the English Channel via the Eurotunnel.

At the port, officials worked hard on Saturday to test the remaining drivers in hopes of deleting the backup. More than 15,526 were tested, 36 of which were positive, the department said.

Hundreds of other military personnel were deployed on Friday to step up testing efforts and distribute food and water provided by a number of organizations.

But almost a week after the blockades of the sea, rail and air routes, the scale of the task made it impossible to predict when the delays would improve and whether the drivers would spend another day in limbo and sleep another night in their trucks would.

Thousands of police officers, civilian testers, council planners and dock workers gave up their Christmas celebrations to reunite drivers with loved ones, said Grant Shapps, the UK’s transport secretary, who praised their efforts.

London airports were fairly quiet on Saturday and there were no signs of a rush the day after the United States imposed new restrictions on people flying in from the UK. From Monday, passengers to the United States will have to provide evidence of a negative coronavirus test.

A Heathrow Airport spokesman said Saturday is not expected to have a large number of travelers and that the day after Christmas is usually a quiet day of travel.

When I think of Ann Reinking, I see legs. Legs in shimmering black tights. Legs in heels. Legs that effortlessly extend to a 6 o’clock extension. They weren’t the only thing that made them dance so brightly, but they were the anchor for their daring. Aside from their shape, they had a force that ingrained their bodies, giving their pelvic isolations a silky kind of groove and their precision a natural, teasing sensuality. Even sprawled on a bed, her legs could tell a story.

Ms. Reinking, who died in her sleep at the age of 71 while visiting her family in Seattle over the weekend, was one of Bob Fosse’s principal dancers and at times his mistress. This bed comes into play in a non-dancing scene from Fosse’s semi-autobiographical film “All That Jazz”, in which Ms. Reinking plays a thinly veiled version of herself. At this point, she just wants Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider, in the role based on Fosse) to stop sleeping around.

The dialogue is funny, but her legs steal the scene: she leans back and drapes it naked over the mattress. Her power is enhanced by her piercing blue eyes and long, shiny dark hair that is parted in the mid to 70s perfection. (Is there anything cooler than a 1970s dancer?) But those legs really matter.

Ms. Reinking made her career on Broadway and in particular in the work of Fosse, for which she was a muse. She officially met Fosse at an audition for “Pippin”, but she was already an admirer of his work. In an interview about seeing Chicago, she said, “I was banned. It went beyond interest. I don’t know why it just kept my attention. And it was a low roar when they finished. “

In 1977, two years before All That Jazz was released, Ms. Reinking, then 27, made a splash in Chicago by replacing Gwen Verdon – Fosse’s wife who appeared on many of his major Broadway shows, including “Damn Yankees” and “Sweet Charity” – as choir girl Roxie Hart, a role she repeated in 1996 when she directed the show in the style of Fosse for a Encores! Presentation in the city center.

In the 1990s, Ms. Reinking became a keeper of the Fosse legacy: The Encores! Revival led to a production on Broadway for which she received a Tony for Best Choreography. “The hope is that by rediscovering ‘Chicago’ the public will rediscover what theater was,” Ms. Reinking said in a 1996 interview with The Times. “It was nifty, complicated, grown up.” (At the time of the coronavirus shutdown, “Chicago” was still on.) In 1998, she co-designed “Fosse,” a revue with Richard Maltby Jr. and Chet Walker, which was played on Broadway from 1999 to 2001.

While she was most recognized for her work in musical theater, Ms. Reinking began – known as Annie, at least in her “dancin” days – in ballet. (Before unveiling the 1996 version of Chicago, she said her approach to choreography was more balletic than Fosse’s.) When she arrived in New York as a young woman, she was on a scholarship from the Joffrey Ballet. On the west coast – she comes from Seattle – she studied with the San Francisco Ballet and learned ballets from George Balanchine.

When you talk about Ms. Reinking’s career path, there isn’t that much talked about, but you can see it in her dance: there is a deeply rooted elegance, an inner organization of the body that you can feel even when it is not expressed. One reason Margaret Qualley, who brought Mrs. Reinking to glittering life in the television series “Fosse / Verdon”, was so good was that she shares that elegance; She was also once a ballet dancer.

Ms. Reinking may be gone, but her dance lives on: lush, full-bodied, lush. And it’s not all Fosse. I forgot Annie, but in this 1982 film Mrs. Reinking plays Grace Farrell, the secretary of billionaire Oliver Warbucks, who encourages him to adopt Annie. In the number “We Got Annie” Ms. Reinking dances up a storm.

She wears a silky yellow dress – it swirls around her legs like a partner – and begins a jazzy, playful stroll, pausing every few beats to move her shoulder or turn. She kicks and wilts like a rag doll. She tears down a hallway, hops over a chair, plays the harp with a few snaps of her fingers, and continues forward, spinning across the room as if sliding on the wind – fuzzy, shiny, but indelibly articulated.

What a daredevil! What a job! In her exuberance, it feels like Ms. Reinking is showing us the sound of laughter. It’s over too early, but it has the appropriate name: At least in these few minutes we will have our Annie too.