Ray of hope Making Contact with Allie Meixner BY JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ

When choreographer Susan Stroman and her late husband, director Mike Ockrent, visited a Manhattan club full of swing dancers, they saw a woman in a yellow dress emerge from the crowd and pull everyone’s eyes to her as she danced. That incident sparked an idea for a show. That show, which pays extensive homage to swing dance, became Contact, which wowed Broadway when it opened in 2000 and went on to win Tony Awards for best musical, best actor and actress in a musical, and best choreographer for Stroman, who also directed.

A touring production of Contact hits the stage at the Providence Performing Arts Center this weekend, with young Pittsburgh native Allie Meixner in the role of the Girl in the Yellow Dress. Contact has three distinct sections, opening with "Swinging," based on the 18th-century Fragonard painting in which two young men watch a young woman on a swing. Stroman makes these men a servant and his master competing for the attentions of the lady, danced to the romantic strains of Stephane Grappelli’s version of "My Heart Stood Still." The second story, "Did You Move?," is set in the 1950s in an Italian restaurant in Queens. An introverted wife fantasizes her way out of an oppressive marriage, as she partners with the headwaiter, the busboys, and other customers to the music of Tchaikovsky, Grieg, and Bizet.

As engaging as these two pieces are, it is the third story, "Contact," that grabbed the attention of critics and audiences alike, with its story of the Girl in the Yellow Dress and her effect on a successful but suicidal advertising exec. It’s here that the show pulls out all of its swing dance stops, to the music of Benny Goodman, the Beach Boys, Robert Palmer, Dion, and Squirrel Nut Zippers.

"It’s a lot of fun for the audience," explains the 18-year-old Meixner, on the phone from a stop in West Virginia. "There are big lifts, a lot of partner work. It’s visually appealing and exciting."

Meixner was one of those kids who started taking dance lessons when she was three; "started to get serious," in her words, when she was about 10 or 11; and continued taking classes — up to 25 hours a week — through her teens. She never did a musical in high school because she was too busy participating in dance competitions all over the country. But she dreamed of going to New York and landing a role in a Broadway musical. Nonetheless, even she was overwhelmed that on her first audition, during her first week in the Big Apple, she was chosen out of 300 to 400 other young women for this five-month tour — "I was ecstatic!"

When she moved to New York in September, Meixner had been just days away from taking a dance job at Disney-Tokyo. But something tugged her so strongly toward NYC that she called up an acquaintance from the dance competitions to see if she could room with her and off she went.

"Roles like this don’t come along very often," she reflected. "Everyone thought I was crazy when I came here, but in my heart, I knew it was the right decision. So I’m thanking my lucky stars."

Meixner kept quite busy through the fall, doing a commercial for the Spanish lottery, taking voice and acting lessons, and keeping up on her dance training. At the end of November, she started rehearsals for Contact.

"The hardest part was learning the initial choreography in three weeks," she recalled. "It was all new stuff, and I was doing the lifts with the guys. I’d never partnered that much, and I’m 5’7", so that was challenging but fun and exciting at the same time."

Meixner admires Stroman’s choreography because "every dance move has a purpose; every single dance step has to be telling the story — that’s why she’s so amazing, because she can do that."

She knows that her part in Contact has become emblematic of the show itself, and she hopes to live up to the now famous character of the Girl in the Yellow Dress. And she sees a message for our times in the story of the ad man and the Girl in the Yellow Dress: "Materialistic things aren’t everything — you need that other connection with human beings to really make your life worth something. He goes to the bar, whether it’s a dream or when he’s unconscious, and everyone wants her and no one can have her. But it makes him realize there’s something to live for — it gives him hope for life."

Maybe it was Meixner’s own upbeat idealism that tour directors recognized when they picked her for the show. She pictures herself in another big dance show, like Movin’ Out or The Producers (another hit for Stroman), sometime in the next five years, and she would like to break into TV.

"A lot of people laugh at me, but I know I can do it," Meixner said, a pound of confidence accenting every syllable. "If I set my mind to it, it’s just a question of determination."

And a lesson for hard-working, hard-dreamin’ young dancers everywhere.

Contact will be at the Providence Performing Arts Center on Saturday, January 29 at 8 p.m. Call (401) 421-ARTS.