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Fringe 2008 Reviews (7)
Driven
Neel de Jong
Rocket@Demarco Roxy Art House
****
In layers of brightly-coloured gauze petticoats, stripy stockings and
lace-up boots, Neel de Jong sends us mixed and disturbing signals about
the complexity of womanhood. A child in the body of a middle-aged woman;
a flamboyantly sexual body that is turning to wrinkles; a body to be
loved or abused, beaten or cherished, de Jong strikes a chillingly resonant
cord with her impressive stage presence.
As her psychologically tangled character flaunts the socially acceptable,
de Jong breaks all the bog standard rules of performance, the expectations
of spectators in unnerving fashion. This is performance art rather than
theatre or dance and one never quite knows what to expect from her next.
One can only be drawn in, respond moment by moment, emotionally and
without mediation from rational processes. It is immediate and raw and
she insinuates herself into private spaces one can't ignore. The thwarted
energy, the defiance, the self-denigration, the pain, the reaching out
are all there and the performance is improvised and changes every night,
adding to its immediacy. Accompanied by Augusto Pirroda, improvising
on piano, the performance is just 30 intense minutes with a tight sweep
moving from quiet gentleness to emotional turmoil, from interiority
to connectedness. It packs a punch and I only felt the full impact,
a gut reaction, when I was standing at the bus stop on Nicolson Street.
It left me confused and amazed and wanting to go back for more.
Neel de Jong is a Dutch performance artist with a remarkably individual
background in (physical) theatre and dance. As a performer and teacher
she has worked in a variety of styles from traditional actors training
to Hopi-Indian rites and African dance and percussion passing through
the Laban Institute for Movement and Dance in London and the Academy
for Expression through Word and Gesture in the Netherlands on the way.
She is utterly unique and it is difficult to put a classification on
anything she does except to say that it is ongoing experimentation,
research into the full potential for expressive, unusual and meaningful
connections with spectators.
Driven is a generous performance that leaves a lasting impression.
It leaves the spectator with images and feelings that are personalised.
I can recommend it to those who like to be challenged.
Jackie Fletcher
Mudfire
The Carpetbag Brigade
Sweet ECA
*** (*)
The Carpetbag Brigade is an intercultural group of acrobats, based
on the West Coast of the USA. They make walking on stilts look so easy
one takes it for granted that they are gigantic supernatural beings,
creatures from primordial myths. As the title suggests, this is an elemental
battle between the forces of nature: earth and fire, yin and yang, masculine
and feminine, demon beast and angel, they are the binary oppositions,
the primeval energies clashing. They work with impressive body make-up
and wonderful masks. Their acrobatic skills are stunning.
While the elemental forces unleashed by global warming might be heading
for Scotland, the modern buildings adjacent to the courtyard of Edinburgh
College of Art are not the most suitable backdrop for Mudfire.
The performers have to work against it, to make their gestures more
pronounced, to punctuate the pacing and increase their stature. This
show would make the most significant impact in natural surroundings,
wide-open spaces below Arthur's Seat or The Meadows. But it would be
impressive also in the streets of the Old Town. Live music would be
a bonus too.
As epic forces clash in performance, the company have had their own
epic battle to fight with paranoid immigration authorities in the US,
who seem not to have grasped the full potential for interculturality
in performance work. The Mexican contingent was denied access to the
US for rehearsals and wasn't even allowed to change planes at a US airport
in transit for Europe. Eventually booked on a Lufthansa flight from
Mexico to Frankfurt, the performer was denied the right to even step
on US soil, being confined to the plane during a stop-over in Houston
for a full six hours. It's pretty clear that when US Neo-Conservatives
talk of liberalisation and removing boundaries (to trade), it's intended
as a one-way system. And that even art is suspect. It makes one realise
that a multicultural celebration like the Edinburgh Festival would never
be able to take place on US territory. They don't know what they are
missing.
If you like spectacle and acrobatics, vivid costumes and masks, I can
recommend Mudfire, but give them a week to settle from their
unfortunate experiences before you see the show.
Jackie Fletcher
Antonio Forcione and Adriano
Adewale
Assembly @ George Street, Edinburgh
*****
After taking a break from Edinburgh last year, virtuoso guitarist Antonio
Forcione returns to the Fringe, but this time for the first three weeks
his Brazilian percussionist from his quartet, Adriano Adewale, gets
equal billing as the two perform at the Assembly rooms as a duo.
After opening with a number for Zimbabwe — "the people, not
the leaders of Zimbabwe" — Forcione leads a selection of his
old and new tracks and even one cover played on electric acoustic guitars
in his distinctive style: heavily amplified to pick up all fret, string
and body noise which is as important a part of his music as the picking
of the strings.
Adewale's percussion set-up looks like an eastern market stall, with
shells, pots and bottles of water amongst the drums and cymbals, but,
as decorative as they may be, all of these objects are used as instruments
at some point in the performance. During the opening number, he seems
to be playing a clay pot with a sheaf of grass, but it sounds great.
Forcione's style is visually very impressive, especially his signature
piece Touch Wood, which sounds like at least a guitar-bass-drums
trio but is all played by him on an acoustic guitar. Adewale actually
plays water at one point, as he uses the dripping of water from a plastic
bottle into a bowl — beautifully lit, as is the whole show —
to open a number merging into other water-like sounds from various instruments,
and it sounds astonishingly good. You can just imagine him spending
most of his time hitting and shaking various objects to see how he can
use them musically.
Forcione does all the talking between numbers, but musically they bounce
off each other superbly, having a great deal of fun when they compete
over sounds, as Forcione creates sounds such as a cock crowing and an
excerpt from the Blue Danube Waltz on guitar, and Adewale manages
to copy him using a drum and a wet finger. The closing number has them
playing off each other again, as they improvise playing their own instruments
and hitting each other's, treating it like a childish game.
As always, Forcione puts on a great performance of some superb musicianship
but with a great deal of charm and even humour, and Adewale competes
admirably with him in an impressive and great-looking and -sounding
show. The duo plays at the Assembly up to 20 August, after which the
full Antonio Forcione Quartet will perform until 25 August.
David Chadderton
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