Two dance artists, a community hall full of people = Cambois Festival’s Hips and Skins!
Hips and Skins, with an additional title of Rude Health, is a duet performed by Esther Huss and dance pioneer and winner of the Jane Attenborough Award for her outstanding contribution to dance, Jacky Lansley. It is an exploration of just that: our hips—Jacky has had a hip replacement—our skin—Esther underwent a Caesarean section—done in a humorous, lightly surreal way, allowing the audience to empathise with the dancers' experiences and those of women generally. A joyous, sometimes serious, sometimes tongue-in-cheek evening that had a freshness about it, perhaps, impressively, because there was only a week of actual rehearsal together!
Part of a unique festival, instigated by, among others, husband and writer Alex Oates, it brought a range of events to the tiny, former coal-mining village of Cambois in Northumberland.
Performed in The Tute, a miners’ community hall, revisioned and renewed as an arts and events space and run by the indefatigable couple Huss and Oates, it was a pleasure to see a sold-out audience at this one-off performance. Let’s hope it’s not the only one though.
The set is a clothes rack on one side and a table of props on the other. The dancers, dressed as moustachioed, black-suited men, reminiscent of the Blues Brothers, appear. There’s much slamming and banging of doors as they enter and exit in heightened masculine style.
The different scenes are all based on conversations between Jacky and Esther held via Zoom during the pandemic, and it focuses on their above-mentioned surgical experiences. However, it includes a plea for more investment in our NHS. It’s a feminist piece in style and presentation, the dancers’ experiences of course and the values they hold. Two women of very different ages and how they view the patriarchal systems and behaviours within the NHS.
In the centre, there’s a funny and loving deconstruction of Swan Lake, mostly performed at the table but ending with Esther taking off in a solo. It’s full of playful irony, showing Swan Lake’s view of woman (as swan / victim), but also the sheer beauty of dancing to Tchaikovsky’s marvellous music.
Hips and Skins would benefit from some tightening and editing as there are so many ideas. However, this ‘danced lecture’ could and should be performed to NHS staff, politicians and everyone else. It’s funny, it’s warm, it’s worth a tour!