3pm—6pm
theatre - dance 0 comedy
DANCE PREVIEW
Wedding belle
Controversial Hungarian dancer Yvette Bozsik has moved on from early shock tactics to a passionate tribute to her roots.
A woman writhing naked in an outsize, air-tight perspex tank. With every shimmer of her hips, every twist of her torso, there was a little less oxygen for Yvette Bozsik to breathe. One audience member demanded that she be ’freed.’
Cutting out the sensual or the sensational is difficult when it comes to talking about the dancer Yvette Bozsik. Going starkers for starters in her early solo work Living Room, was bound to get newspaper columnists twittering and prudes marching on the moral high ground. Her background is also ready fuel for hype. Bozsik is from Budapest, perhaps not top-notch exotica but definitely not the British ’burbs. And she was 'discovered'. Richard Demarco, the eccentric, elder statesman of Edinburgh's art scene, spotted her performing in a downtown Budapest theatre in the 1989 and secured her British debut at the Fringe in 1990. More importantly, she’s an extraordinary dancer, with a constellation of accolades, last year winning The Independent Dance Award.
But times have changed. Bozsik has moved on from full-on flesh exposure. ’That was when I was fighting against classical ballet' says Bozsik of Living Room. ’I wanted to break-away, gain my independence. I didn't want to make a scandal but the nakedness was very necessary.’ Now 29 years old, Boszik's dance style is not so much diluted as distilled.
In the solo piece, Hommage a Mary Wigman that she's
Yvette Bozsik: Intense, elaborate, impassioned
performing at this year’s Fringe, Bozsik appears in a vast, elaborate swathe of fabric. An intense twenty- minute long dance, it runs a passioned course through the agony and ecstasy of the life of 205 German dancer, Wigman and her battle with post-war reality and the rise of fascism. ‘lt’s about her development from hell to heaven’ says Bozsik of Wigman, her life-long hero.
The mood changes in The Wedding. Here Bozsik's dancers make merry to a score of jazz-cum-Hungarian folk music. A surreal dance, it teeters on the burlesque. ’lt's grotesque and about a gypsy wedding with absurd moments’ says Bozsik. But as she is fond of saying, dance is a universal language. It can touch everyone. (Susanna Beaumont)
I Hommage a Mary Wigman & The Wedding, Compagnie Yvette Bozsik, The Famous Grouse House (Venue 34) 220 5606 until 30 Aug, 3. 75pm, £7 (£5).
Personal journey into excess: fecund theatre‘s 27
chiidhood and adolescent years. Although slickly staged, fast-paced and Sprinkled with endearing recognition gags, it’s unremarkable material. What sets it apart is the company’s skilful integration of live action, narrative, video and sound effects to create an overwhelming whole. Seven is a big cast for a small-scale touring company, and With so much happening onstage, fecund flirts with information overload.
But none of this prepares us for the excellent second half, in which family bereavements, bad JObS and soul- searching are swamped by a Dantean tour of hedonism’s infernal paradise, leading from the Ibiza rave scene, Via the coke 'n' sex debauchery of London
THEATRE REVIEW
27
****
Buckinghamshire-based fecund theatre has for some years been chiselling away at the Berlin Wall between 'ordinary' life and drug-induced mayhem. Their 93 show The Pleasure Dome investigated ’the highs and lows of drugs', while The End (95) COnVinCingly accompanied Jim
Morrison on his iomney through the doors of perception.
This brand-new piece (co- commissioned by Glagow’s Tramway) is 'a personal retrospective' whose 'stimulus is autobiographical? A not- necessarin-reliable memOir by fecund’s writer/director John Keates, it suggests that in his first 27 years he followed Morrison some way down the road to excess
The first half of this marginally overlong show relates the protagonists
yuppiedom to the ultimate headfuck of Bangkok high-life. It’s hard to imagine a more effective theatrical evocation of an individual losrng himself to wild times.
The structure is perhaps too meandering, and the ending is deCIdedly trite, but the overall
experience is definitely a trip
(Andrew Burnet)
I 27 (Fringe) fecund theatre, Theatre Workshop (Venue 20) 226 5425, until 25 Aug, 3.45pm, f6 (f4),
H it list The magnificent seven
Talking To The Wall Irish author Mannix Flynn's intense confessional monologue is stripping the paint ,off the walls at The Honeycomb. Prepare for lift-off. See review on following pages. Talking To The- Wall (Fringe) Sugerloaf, The ’ Honeycomb (Venue 139) 226 2151, until 30 Aug, 4pm, £6 (£5).
The Prince Of West End Avenue Character genius Kerry Shale plays 14 roles as the residents ofla Jewish retirement home trying to put on Hamlet. See review on following pages. The Prince Of West End Avenue (Fringe) Kerry Shale, Assembly Rooms (Venue 3) 226 2428, until 30 Aug (not 26) 4.25pm, £7. 50/f8. 50 (f 6. 50/£ 7.50).
The Wedding 8i Hommage a Mary Wigman Controversial Hungarian dance star Yvette Bozsik in two new shows. See preview, left.
fecund Theatre's 27 Theatre combines with futuristic technology in the authentically clubby Redesign-.5egrevimletta.
Fool House Trestle Theatre Company collaborate with Dutch performers to create a haunting farce using music, mask and mime. Fool House (Fringe) Trestle Theatre Company, The P/easance (Venue 33) 556 6550, until 30 Aug (not 26) 3. 15pm, £7/f8 (£5/f 6).
Hellcab Flag a cab and go see this. Bruce Willis meets Travis Bickle in this darkly comic taxi ride to the depths of the American soul. Hellcab (Fringe) Tamarind Theatre, Traverse (Venue 75) 228 1404, until 30 Aug, times vary, £8 (£5).
Stung Breathtakineg beautiful daredevil ’anti—gravity' dance from acclaimed company Momentary Fusion. You’ll laugh, you‘ll gasp, you'll look up in the air. See Freeloader on pages 5 & 7 Stung (Fringe) Momentary Fusion, St Bride’s (Venue 62) 346 1405, until 30 Aug (not 24) 4pm, £6/£7 (EA/£5).
22—28 Aug 1997 TllEllST37