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FESTIVAL DANCE | Previews and Reviews
PREVIEW MADAME FREEDOM Husband and wife team give dance a new look
While some dance shows at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival are going for the stripped back and bare approach, YMAP (Your Media Arts Project) is taking its performance to the opposite extreme. Named after the 1957 Korean film of the same name, Madame
Freedom blends live performance with a range of striking visuals, shown on a three-sided performance wall and on the stage floor. The film – which caused an uproar on its release – follows the exploits of a Korean wife and mother who eschews the traditional female role of the time to go out dancing and have affairs.
‘I used a few clips from the movie,’ explains choreographer and director, Hyo Jin Kim, ‘and archived footage of the 1960s TV show to go along with the movements I created.’
Hyo Jin, who also performs the piece, was trained in Korean dance from an early age, before going on to study ballet and contemporary dance, all of which informs her work today. But despite the show’s title, the film’s subject matter has little bearing on the choreography Hyo Jin has produced.
‘I turned my Madame Freedom, who is an ordinary housewife in the film, into a woman travelling through different times and space,’ she explains. Working alongside Hyo Jin on the project, was her husband and co-founder of YMAP, Hyung Su Kim, who has also created Media Skins, the beautiful images on show outside the Usher Hall and Festival Theatre this August. Both works ask the audience to look at technology and art in a different way. ‘I hope the audience can enjoy the interaction and walk away from the show feeling refreshed,’ says Hyo Jin. ‘As for what happens to Madame Freedom, I want to leave it to the audience to decide for themselves.’ (Kelly Apter) ■ King’s Theatre, 473 2000, 20 & 21 Aug, 8pm, £12–£30.
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CIRCA: WUNDERKAMMER Guaranteed thrills in hot circus show ●●●●● MÉNAGE À TROIS An ode to love not yet found ●●●●●
Wunderkammer has to be the flat-out sexiest of all the circus-theatre shows running rampant on this year’s Fringe. Created by Circa, an Australian company at the forefront of innovative circus performance worldwide, it’s an amalgam of amazing acrobatic skills and saucy, genderbending cabaret- style teasing. Imagine Bob (All That Jazz) Fosse running off to join the circus and you’ll have an inkling of what’s in store.
The title is German for a cabinet of curiosities, or wonders. There are indeed some wonderful acts here. A ginger-haired woman has a momentous, innately musical encounter with a hoop. A buff man strips down to his smalls while on the trapeze. There’s an even more memorable male ‘duet’ on the Chinese pole. And let’s not forget the group nostril-flossing . . .
Claire Cunningham’s exploration of her 20-year relationship with crutches is a bold piece of theatre. Not because Cunningham brings to the stage a style of dance that many won’t have seen before, but because she shares her own feelings about her disability in order to demonstrate the universal truth – that it’s our insecurities that stop us finding love. From the opening, where Cunningham’s quotes appear on gauze screens (in Gail Sneddon’s superb video design), Ménage à Trois is a deeply personal ode to a love not yet found. There are playful moments – Cunningham taking pot-shots at lovers in a video game called ‘Killer Couples’ – but the heart of the piece begins to beat when she creates a puppet-boyfriend out of crutches, and is so wrapped up in her imaginary man that she fails at first to notice the human version behind it.
What’s great about Wunderkammer, maybe even Shot through with startling images, honest
more than the terrific cast’s innate desirability and presence, is its sense of equality: the women are as strong and skilled as the men. If it’s smart, body- based thrills you’re seeking, you probably can’t do better than this show. (Donald Hutera) ■ Underbelly Bristo Square, 0844 545 8252, until 26 Aug (not 20), 5pm, £16.50–£18.50 (£15.50– £17.50). statements about the subconscious shopping lists we make when looking for a partner, and the nonchalantly whipped-out treat of Cunningham’s gorgeous soprano, this is a piece danced and designed straight from the soul. (Lucy Ribchester) ■ Paterson’s Land, 651 1421, until 25 Aug (not 15, 19, 20, 22), times vary, £14 (£11.50).
WHAT IS THE WEIGHT OF YOUR DESIRE Czech females in fresh feminist mode ●●●●●
VerTeDance’s female quartet, one of a trio of movement-based productions from the Czech Republic at this year’s Fringe, is a fine example of how a fresh approach to familiar material pays off. Audience members are playfully weighed as they enter. At the top of the show a performer screams while peeling off some (not all) of her clothes. Socks are shoved down pants. A chatterbox blonde is pulled around like a sack of potatoes. ‘Women are objects’ someone intones, but soon another dancer is blowing a raspberry on the sober speaker’s belly. There is hysterical laughter, a fair amount of artful slipping around to a pop-rock soundtrack and a spate of ravenous mock-erotica. What makes all this more than just a lot of
self-indulgent neo-feminist behaviouralism – and earns the show an extra star – is the cast’s sheer brio. As modern young women, they’re struggling intelligently and entertainingly with who and what they’re meant to be, while as the spiritual granddaughters of Pina Bausch they can get away with being as goofy, witty, tough or brave as they like. (Donald Hutera) ■ Zoo, 662 6892, until 25 Aug (not 14, 21), 6.10pm, £8 (£6).
56 THE LIST FESTIVAL 15–22 Aug 2013