Did River Deep Make Reviewers Feel Like Dancing?

Tina Turner's music is revered around the world, and her life story was made into a 1993 film. River Deep, based on Turner's autobiography, I, Tina, is now an off-Broadway musical at the Peter Jay Sharp Theatre. Did critics find out how deep this river goes?

Here's a sampling of what they had to say:

William Stevenson in his Broadway.com Review: "Given the title, one might reasonably expect Gabrielle Lansner's new musical to be a Tina Turner greatest-hits collection. Think again. Although Lansner captures the singer's indomitable spirit with exuberant choreography, she sets the routines to original songs by Philip Hamilton. Fortunately, his best songs sound quite a bit like hard-driving '60s R&B, and the all-female cast dances with abandon. The show loses steam during the slower, abstract modern-dance numbers, but overall River Deep is a lively homage to a great entertainer and survivor."

Frank Scheck of The New York Post: "That River Deep: A Tribute to Tina Turner offers not a note of its subject's music is both its biggest weakness and its biggest strength. The music/theater homage that opened this weekend, directed and choreographed by Gabrielle Lansner, at times manages to convey the pop diva's forceful personality and musical impact while avoiding clichéd jukebox-musical renditions of the songs that made her famous. Still, there's something disconcerting about a production celebrating one of pop's most influential figures that ignores her music. Instead of such classics as "What's Love Got to Do With It" and the song that gives this show its title, the choreography is performed to an original score by Philip Hamilton that's clearly been influenced by Turner's blending of pop, soul and rock… .Visually, the piece is monotonous as well, with the sole diversion being backdrop projections of still pictures of the dancers. It isn't until the end that we see a photo of the subject herself, and by then it's possible that we may have forgotten who the show is supposed to be about."

Mark Blankenship of Variety:"Give it this much: River Deep: A Tribute to Tina Turner is not just another jukebox tuner. Only one of Turner's songs—and an obscure one at that, "In Your Wildest Dreams"—actually appears in this musical tribute from writer-director-choreographer Gabrielle Lansner. Otherwise, the show features an original score as it pays vague, occasionally charming homage to a rock icon. Yet despite all the songs by composer Philip Hamilton, it would be hard to call this production a musical. It's more of a movement piece—Lansner's background is in dance—with legit accessories. Choreography does most of the work as we follow a loose chronology of Turner's life. Numbers are often either wordless or feature singers standing with the onstage band while the ensemble perform elaborate routines. Occasional monologues, adapted from Turner's autobiography, "I, Tina," hit the high points of the performer's story—from her childhood in Tennessee to her escape from abusive husband Ike—but never stop the shimmying for long."