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Fringe 2008 Reviews (20)
Caesar Twins
Udderbelly's Pasture
*****
Hands up those of you who've ever wondered what it would be like to
tumble into bed with a pair of drop-dead gorgeous identical twins! With
their perfect athlete's bodies and charming smiles, Pierre and Pablo
Caesar would suit nicely, and, in fact, it's a joke they refer to in
their show with a member of the audience. The tone of the performance
is relaxed and inclusive, stunningly physical and openly personal.
The Caesar Twins look like a pair of angels who have just flown out
of an Italian Renaissance painting. And fly they do, dazzlingly, beautifully,
soaring through the air on wires like angelic beings, flipping and somersaulting
across a trampoline with mesmerising speed and agility. Their show combines
on-the-edge acrobatics with sumptuous aesthetics, live music, humour
and a bit of kitsch thrown in for good measure. They transform themselves
from angels to video game characters, from acrobats in the public arena
to private twins.
On a large screen there is old black-and-white footage of circus performers
from the early 20th century, jokes and some private material about their
completely symbiotic lifestyles. Perfectly identical, the Polish born
twins were star athletes, living and training and travelling together,
turning their first somersaults in the womb, before joining a German
circus at the age of 18. In 2002 one of the twins tumbled 16 metres
to the sawdust from a 'wheel of death'. We are shown X-ray images of
his broken spine, his shattered hip, the reconstructive surgery, and
when one looks down to see the young man turning back flips below, the
word 'miracle' springs to mind. However, this is not a miracle, but
a triumph of the human spirit. Their allusions to Castor and Pollux,
the heavenly twins who couldn't bear to be parted, though one of them
was mortal, are apposite indeed.
The final piece, in glass bowl of water, is racey and visually beautiful,
but I have a feeling that it is the images I retain of their aerial
work, staggeringly, awe-inspiringly beautiful, that will stay with me,
provoking dizzying emotions and butterflies in my tummy for a very long
time to come.
Jackie Fletcher
Gamarjobat - The Western
Gamarjobat
The Gilded Balloon Teviot
*****
Gamarjobat are funnier that the combined talents of the Max Sennett
Studios put together. They are Chaplin and Keeton, Laurel and Hardy
all rolled into one with Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck thrown in for good
measure. With their colourful Mohican hairstyles, tightly fitting black
suits and cheesy grins, they are the people's jesters of the 21st century.
Their forte is creative reinvention of the ribaldry and slapstick of
age-old gags that have wowed audiences for centuries. And that is part
of the fun; they have a new take on old jokes that surprise and delight
and bowl us over at manic speed. As the house lights go down, they explode
onto the stage with a knock out energy that transports you into Gamarjobat's
own world of insane logic and delicious silliness. It's a bit like a
dose of the elixir of life.
Last year's scintillating Rock 'n' Roll Penguin kept me belly-laughing
for a full 60 minutes. This year they have modified the pace a bit in
the second half to exhibit their considerable mime skills in a silent
parody of the Spaghetti Western. A solitary hero on a troublesome (hobby)
horse meets sexy Mexican saloon girl and the villain who murdered his
father. It is a tale of love and vengeance, a parody of the genre, told
through mime and movement and music.
Gamarjobat have a large fan following in the UK. Their audiences love
them and they are at their best when working the audience. Their appearances
on British TV have widened their appeal and cheers and whistles of delight
greet their appearance on stage. I hope their success on the box doesn't
incline them to adapt their live material to meet the expectations of
TV audiences. There is too much banality on British TV these days. Ketch
and Hiro-pon are unique; they are comic geniuses.
Jackie Fletcher
Rise
Tom Dale Company
Zoo Southside
*****
If I have to think of one single phrase that sums up Tom Dale's Rise,
I would say that it is the mesmerizing fluidity transporting wave upon
wave of evocation and assuring cohesion of the various styles of movement.
Five hooded dancers converge and diverge sinuously, expressing the tension
and isolation as well as the striving for interaction and connectedness
that is the lot of contemporary urban youth. A melange of music by SION,
POLE, Susumo Yakota, Aphex Twin and GENTLEMAN colludes with the movement
to render the performance utterly transfixing and redolent with confused
emotions. Rise is at one and the same time exhilaratingly beautiful
and simmering with danger.
Dale is an outstanding dancer and a thoughtful choreographer. A graduate
of Laban London, he is able to invigorate the contemporary dance scene
with his engagement, researching the forces that impact on humans in
modern technological societies. He crosses boundaries of style seamlessly.
Rise should delight audiences of all ages, but equally it should
be given funding to tour to places where contemporary dance is never
seen, because it has the potential to engage new audiences and draw
in young people in challenging new ways.
Highly recommended.
Jackie Fletcher
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