Does this matter in 2014?

After ten years of revival, has Cabaret finally gained critical legitimacy?

FEATURE BY GARETH K VILE.

PUBLISHED in the shimmy 06 AUGUST 2010

Coming from a circus and New York City Live Art aesthetic, The Wau Wau Sisters are tired of the burlesque tag. "Originally, a burlesque was a three act play, satirical and political," they say. "Now, it just means women taking their clothes off."

The cabaret revival is now in its fifth year - tenth according to the sisters, from an American perspective. Crippled by a lack of critical respect, and sometimes appearing to be self-supportive community rather than a challenging art form, most critique consists of bland statements and lazy truisms.

The Wau Wau Sisters, inspired by Obama but grappling with the reality if slow change, have added the Last Supper as a theme for their Assembly show as a dynamic theme alongside their mixture of rigour and mayhem.

"The train wreck is our friend," they insist as they prepare to provoke the tasteful tassel-twirlers who dominate UK burlesque.

Ahead of Sarah Louise Young's plot to give cabaret its own section in the Fringe brochure, an explosion of shows are claiming its influence, and the definition of cabaret becomes complicated. Whether it is Luluat the Zoo, with a cabaret band and a defined period drama, the variety assault of the Bongo Club, the polished finesse of Blonde Ambition’s Ghillie Dhu take-over or the twisted irony of flame songstress Camille O’Sullivan, cabaret has become a buzzword.

It can be a by-word for sloppy technique and feel-good exhibitionism, historical revisionism, a genuine interest in relating the past to the present, a variety show format, anything involving nudity, knowing satire or talented artists reworking traditional vaudeville. British, American and European strands combine and fuse: sometimes it is fundamentally sexy or saucy, other times it is funny or spectacular. The original burlesque revival, as pioneered in Scotland by The Academy of Burlesque and Cabaret, has divided into a rump of night best described as “community orientated” and a powerful professional cadre of excellence.

The producer is increasingly vital: a good cabaret is often defined by intelligent programming and not a wishful evocation of atmosphere through vintage clothes and corsets. Blonde Ambition and Itsy’s Collective prove how a strong editorial vision coalesces into a bracing evening. The battle between cabaret as a token influence and a distinctive genre will be fought across this year’s Fringe.

The best cabaret merges diverse traditions to expose social, political or personal ideology through technical skill, satire, sexiness and slapstick. The worst panders to audiences, repeats a limited movement vocabulary in different costumes and stereotypes, excusing lack of imagination with a vague rubric of self-empowerment.

The variety format contains both: only visionary production and a skilled compere can resolve the tension. Blonde Ambition thrilled the Voodoo Rooms last Fringe with Ministry of Burlesque’s High Tease: this year, their Vive Le Cabaret is the Pleasance’s flag-ship, promising a rich lineup. Held together by Des O’Connor’s musical theatre showmanship, and plucking a cast from the best of the Fringe, they cater to the high end of the market.

Kitty Cointreau’s Brahaha is a comedy-vaudeville hybrid. It collates both classic acts and new blood, and is the first Zoo venue variety show. Against this youngster, The Bongo Club Cabaret, designed by Glasgow’s Rhymes With Purple, is the godfather, guaranteeing a rotation of top notch acts. 

For a tougher edge, try the Free Fringe’s Kabarett at the Voodoo Rooms. Amanda Palmer is a former guest, while Itsy’s Collective promise a new format and an opening show that includes the Tiger Lilies. 
These shows all share rotating casts: not about scenes or individual artists, they depend on overall atmosphere and creative booking. They also offer great value, as performers sell their own shows through a rapid-fire guest slot. 

The other cabaret strand consists of performers who come from a theatre, dance or comedy background, but take up cabaret as a motif. Bryony Kimmings was slipping between genres, before deciding that although “the word was laden with almost negative expectations, in its purest sense it fits for me.” DespiteSex Idiot being a one-woman show, and leaping across Live Art and comedy boundaries, the combination of styles suggested cabaret.

This adoption of cabaret as a definition is more explicitly stated by Company Chordelia. Best known for radical dance, they follow the footsteps of The Featherstonehaughs and Cholmondeleys with a cabaret inspired performance. From the other direction, the ubiquitous Des O’Connor teams with Sarah Louise Young and Mr B to forge a show from their vaudeville stylings.

O’Connor was involved in The Mating Ritual, one of the strongest shows to merge narrative and variety: adding a company feel, and linking each routine, as echoed in more theatrical offerings like Dramaten’s Freakshow. But even a solo show- like A Picture of Dusty Limits - can unite material towards a common end, while drawing on the cabaret tradition.

Quite often, the word cabaret just means that the company fancy hitting a zeitgeist, or have incorporated different techniques into their script. A desperate attempt at the fag-end of last year saw a random burlesque shoved into a mediocre play, while this year, Tales From A Cabaret sees The Creative Martyrs reveal a mastery of both physical theatre and twisted vaudeville. And, of course, The Wau Wau sisters will be exploring the territory between laughter and terror, for audience and performers. 

Qing Cheng, FRINGE 2011

FEATURE BY GARETH K VILE.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE SHIMMY 05 AUGUST 2011

Qing Cheng, starring a husband and wife team as time-crossed lovers, is “the first ever artistic attempt to showcase the Taoist philosophy on stage.” It highlights the particular preoccupations of this rich spiritual tradition. “Take for example the duality of soft versus hard, and the ideas of non-doing, immortality, natural balance, and ultimate quietude," says James Tee Wee. "One will find the teaching of Lao Tzu presented in abundance. The use of tai chi movement, sword technique, calligraphy, chess games, music instruments, and praying rituals on stage are all very representative of Taoism. Even the scenery wagon on stage resemble a pair of Ying and Yang!”

The Ying and Yang is the central image of Taoism, and symbolises the complex relationship between contrasting elements that makes us Taoisms most distinctive – and well-known – concept. Given that “the Tao which can be named is not the Tao,” it is perhaps surprising that theatre has not been quicker to play with its precepts, since it contains that ambiguity that is ideal for a challenging performance.

There is considerable romance alongside the hard thinking: and the abstract philosophy does not disconnect Qing Cheng from hard reality. “It all began with the producer's visit to the devastated city of Dujiangyan after the Sichuan earthquake. Mr LV thought it would be meaningful in creating some intangible asset for the people there. He sourced local folktales, then script writing.”

“What makes it more meaningful is that Tang Zixing and Wang Lida, who play hero Murong and Princess Jade, met in volunteer relief work for the same earthquake! Soon they fell in love, and got married!”

Christian religious art – from Botticelli’s Annunciation to David Mach’s controversial exhibition down near Waverley Station – takes on all manner of forms, but Tee Wee observes that Taoism dictates that its art has a particular quality. “The practitioner has to master their heart and soul. It is not just as simple as controlling them but to subdue all impulses and let the being itself blend very harmoniously with universe.”

As the performance reveals, this philosophy can be found in many arts, but the quality of the artist is, in itself, the ideal being expressed. “One can easily spot a uniqueness in all Taoist arts, which is the feel of harmony. The act can be swift and forceful but the results are always graceful and smooth.”

In conversation with Rasta Thomas, Ballet's Bad Boy (FROM 2011)

In conversation with Rasta Thomas, Ballet's Bad Boy

FEATURE BY GARETH K VILE.

PUBLISHED 05 AUGUST 2011

One of my big themes this year has been the way that ballet is often disparaged by companies who use its tradition and techniques: in your press release you talk about "ballet with attitude... without the constraints of classical dance traditions". What part of ballet have you held onto, and what are the constraints that you have abandoned?

We have held on to the beauty and strength of the technique and let go of everything that can be boring! We use pop and rock music, wear funky clothes and break down the walls of what you would get going to the ballet! We yell and expect you to do the same! We "ROCK" the Ballet!

In terms of casting, how far did you select ballet dancers and then add the other styles, or did you work with acrobats and hip-hop artists as well?

We select very versatile dancers. They are what we call "hybrids". They can do many styles of dance, as well as acrobatics and martial arts. We have found dancers online, at auditions, at competitions... Everywhere!

Something that ballet shares with musical theatre is the narrative: does Rock the Ballet have a story, or is it a more abstract piece about dance itself?

We use a loose story in our first act. It's a basic love story but showcases romance and laughter. Our second act is full of awesome dancing to awesome music. Simple.

How well does ballet mesh with forms like hip hop or tap? Are there shared values between the different forms?

Of course. They all require skill, coordination, talent and passion. They are very music driven and express many different emotions.

What sort of response were you hoping for with the show, and has this been the response that you have received?

The response to ROCK the Ballet has been incredible!!! We have fans all over the world and couldn't be happier. We want to keep people coming to the theatre so we will keep doing great shows!!!

If ballet is often perceived as old fashioned, why do you think it has retained its popularity?

Tradition is very alive in ballet. I love that and feel it should always be celebrated. We just wanted to do something different. We wanted to shake things up in the dance world and give people something to talk about.

Are there other companies that you feel any affinity with?

Not really because I feel we are the future. The past is great to learn from but I wanna keep moving forward and stay on a path that's only meant for us.

Glasgow dancer gets environmental (2011)

EVENT PREVIEW BY GARETH K VILE.

PUBLISHED IN THE SHIMMY 04 AUGUST 2011

Rosalind Masson is one of Glasgow's most energetic young dancers: having been part of punk icon Linder's thirteen hour underground special The Darktown Cakewalk, a regular collaborator with Tom Pritchard and one of Dance Base's tips for the top through their compilation show at The Traverse last autumn, Masson now turns her attention to environmental catastrophe.

"What inspired me to make Our Oceans are Drowning is the melting of the polar ice-caps due to global warming," she says. "To me it just seems totally insane to think that this is a positive thing and to exploit the resources now becoming available - which is what's now being negotiated." And this is more than an abstract worry: "Cairn Energy, the forerunners drilling for oil in the Arctic are based in Edinburgh and I wanted to send a message to them. It would be great if they could come to the performance."

Masson may well be a familiar improviser, but she has been quick to integrate other arts into her work. For a time, she focused on splicing film and performance. "For me, film is all about movement and timing, while also being able to work in non-linear time and space through editing and post production. That's a lot of fun, but at some point I realised I needed to come back to my body."

The sense of alienation from the body Masson detected in her time as a film-maker reflects not only her musings on the way that environmental carelessness disconnects humans from their planet, but also a more general alienation of people from creativity.

"I have this theory that if dance, music, crafts and the arts were more a part of everyone's everyday life and culture then I wouldn't be doing this whole thing."

 "I guess contemporary dancers end up becoming these spectacles that sacrifice themselves - not for their art but from a frustration about the general state of things."

From the the original political inspiration, Masson's vision of  the artist becomes almost shamanic: Our Oceans promises to find the place where art becomes an act of political engagement.

Allege Tanec Praha 2011

EVENT REVIEW BY GARETH K VILE.
PUBLISHED IN THE SHIMMY 04 JULY 2011


At first, Allege appears to be a simple circus trick: a man balances a glass on his head, fills it with water and organises an increasingly complex series of manoeuvres. Flashes of darkness, fragments of music, Clement Layes shambles around the stage, his head bowed in intense concentration.

Like a good cabaret act, Layes builds the tension, slowly revealing the extent of his skill. Like any good Live Artist, he takes time to explain his movement vocabulary: the hunched shuffle, the meticulous shifting of glasses, water, bottles, bucket and watering can. The finale analysis, which fades to black, attempts to provide a specific meaning to each object. The intent is satirical.

Layes’ charisma is important: without it, his activities are an apparently meaningless rotation of the stage, a neurotic manipulation of random objects and an impressive balancing skill taken beyond all reason.

Yet by lacing the half-hour with wry humour, he softens the stark simplicity of the act. And despite his spurious explanations, Allegedoes hide a broad comment on the distortions created by unnecessary pressure. Hunched as he is, Layes becomes forced into awkward lunges and reaches, ever careful not to disturb the glass, even as it inhibits his movement. The repetitions are, at times, painfully slow but the artist’s good humour, and self-parody, rescue Allege from being either pretentious or shallow.

The Nrityagram Dance Ensemble

Celebrate the female divine

FEATURE BY GARETH K VILE.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE SHIMMY 26 AUGUST 2011

"I dream a place where nothing exists, except dance. A place called Nrityagram."

Protima Gauri (October 12,1948 - August 18, 1998)

The dance programme of the international festival is dominated by works from the East: unfamiliar forms like shamanic Gut from Korea, or the precise excellence of the National Ballet of China not only represent how different dance can be around the world but that cliches about "primitive" performance have been destroyed by the cultural flow between nations. The Nrityagram Dance Ensemble are perhaps the most traditional entry in the EIF: their publicity emphasises the ritualistic and religious aspects of their choreography.

The NDE are more than a company. Under the guidance of their original guru, they have developed a philosophy that sets dance at the centre of spiritual practice. Based on the Gurukul tradition - the dancers live together as part of a co-operative community - the training goes beyond technique and into an entire way of life. And while ballerinas may find their lives are submerged into their discipline, Gurukul consciously engages every aspect of being.

The beautiful costumes and refined movement are placed at the service of the community and the gods. Rather than being the individual expression of a creator's vision, NDE gave praise to the Creator. Sriyah celebrates the goddess through a wide range of Indian styles, including Kathak, Odissi and Bharatnatyam.

There is a danger for western critics and audiences to exoticise foreign companies, to miss the subtle nuance of the dance's relationship to a culture, or simply ignore the sophistication of the choreography to enjoy a surface glamour. Yet the richness of Sriyah comes from its connection to the dancers' lifestyle and sincere religious convictions.

Balls and Double Points: K... originally published in the shimmy

Think dance is for the weak? Gareth K Vile checks out the toughest gangs in town.

EVENT REVIEW BY GARETH K VILE.

PUBLISHED 10 AUGUST 2008

The third of Dancebase’s mixed bills features a long work from Norway’s Odd Johan Fritzoe and a jittering remix from Rosie Kay. Both of these works display technical perfection, ferocious technique, edgy energy and relentless force: as a double bill, it is exhausting just to watch.

The brutality of Frtitzoe’s Balls sees four dancers - two of them breakers - hurl themselves around four different sized balls. Reminiscent of some extreme sport, it is masculine, rugged and violent: by the end, one dancer is being sacrificed by the others, following a cartoon-like chase over the set. The harsh music, the stark colours, the non-stop movement all make this a frightening pleasure - a visual interpretation of hardcore techno, or a dance version of mountaineering. The delight is in the technique, which does not sacrifice emotion. There is a real sense that Balls is uncovering dark rituals behind apparently playful masculine behaviour.

Rosie Kay’s Double Points: K is equally hard-hitting, although the moments of ballet and Bach only serve to heighten the ferocity of the extreme electro against which they are set. A duet, it sets the two dancers in opposition, thrusting them to the further edges of physical possibility. A harsh soundtrack, an achingly fast pace, and juddering switches between styles and forms, Double Points: K is breath-taking and alarming: a real and vicious thrill.

Together, these two works are savage: this programme questions any attempt to call dance effete or weak. The dancers are precise and hard, the choreography demanding and the music bitter. It is one of the most exciting hours possible on the whole Fringe.

Past Thoughts on Dance (Originally in The Shimmy)

Gareth K Vile gets down to specifics.

FEATURE BY GARETH K VILE.

PUBLISHED 09 AUGUST 2009

Once dance has been stripped of the “universal language” rhetoric, it entertains more personal potentials and becomes about shared learning rather than confirming consensus. By drawing on traditional movement vocabularies, it studies concepts that are so often excluded from the bland consumerism of modernity, echoing the conflicts of the past and present through an accessible symbolism. 

Anwesha Dance Company, with their North-East Indian inspiration filtered through Watford, make the battle between freedom and tradition explicit in A Mind's Journey in Search of Destiny. Pulling on the themes and style of Manipuri, it captures the tension between modern openness and ancient discipline in a throwdown between a ferocious contemporary dancer and a decoratively costumed Manipuri conscience. 

The text which leads the story deals with big issues in a leaden tone – as if to emphasise the contrast between the fluidity of the body and the dullness of mere words – and the young company are still evolving: yet this visceral war for identity is compelling through its exquisite video and dynamic structure. Manipuri, rooted in devotional worship, offers a foundation that happily evokes big ideas: the contemporary lends aggression. 

The story itself is intensely personal; dance training is used as a metaphor for the individual’s journey to integration, with the competing pulls of past and present beautifully represented in footage of the dancers performing in tube stations and shopping malls. 

Boh, on the other hand, does not pull on any particular past, using contemporary dance as a vehicle for confusion and crisis. A single dancer rotates personalities, flirts with a cupboard that holds memories of lost love and hope, hurling herself across the stage and channelling superb technique to a series of buzz-cut sketches. Italian in origin, it escapes the problems of translation by dealing with familiar matters – romance and social pressure, loneliness and the need for glamour – without ever being trite or obvious. Again, a specific story is told, making the particular comprehensible and expanding the debate around the pressures of female identity. 

Iona Kewney is an even more extreme example of freedom. Her Self-Interrupted Exhibition comes from her gymnastic training. Taking something usually so showy, she delves deep into a feral agitation that removes the gloss to gradually entrance with ecstatic dance. The loud music, the intensity of her actions, the awkward stumbling and impossible contortions: Kewney is utterly original, stunning and exhausting. Relentlessly idiosyncratic, her work is essential and maps out the outer-edge of possibility. 

Dance is always a dialogue, between audience and performers, between technique and expression, between the idea and its expression. The Fringe, when it is not a series of late night parties and drunken antics, is a hothouse of alternatives and invention.

Iona Kewney - Skinny Selections

Iona Kewney performs at The National Review, in the space where dance touches Live Art

EVENT PREVIEW BY GARETH K VILE.
PUBLISHED 26 FEBRUARY 2010


Audience reactions to Iona Kewney are always similarly varied. Some people cover their ears from Joe Quimby’s guitar loops. Others look sore offended at this gymnastic tour de force, asking where the technique has gone. A few are puzzled. Then some people realise that the immediacy of Kewney’s movement, the impossible contortions and moments of livid ecstasy are the fulfilment of contemporary dance’s promise to escape ballet’s restraint and to forge new art from the potential of the body and the depth of imagination.


Within fifteen minutes, Kewney asks the big questions: how free can we be? What is choreography? Why has dance become so polite, and couldn't we do with more work that crosses psychedelic distortion and physical presence? While it is possible simply to marvel at her prowess, the moments of elegance that slip between her feats are shining drops of revelatory grace.




There are few originals in any art form. Gareth K Vile meets a dancer who has the unique combination of skills and experience to count as one of them

FEATURE BY GARETH K VILE.
PUBLISHED 09 AUGUST 2009


“My work is balanced between dance, madness and performance art: the mentality of taking things beyond the limits of exertion, testing human will and physical endurance, bordering on the compulsions of madness.”


Iona Kewney was once a member of the Scottish gymnastic team. Yet her unique career has taken her from art school through circus training to the extreme creativity of the Belgian contemporary dance movement. In conversation, she is enthusiastic and passionate, drawing connections between different genres and artists, almost paralleling her dynamic performances with a distinctive flexibility and energy.


Self-Interrupted Exhibition promises to surprise and challenge, even to disturb. Her wide range of influences makes her work difficult to define. “I don’t choreograph,” she states. “Its not in my vocabulary; I improvise in the overall context.” However, having worked with Belgian luminaries such as Wim Vandeykebus and Alain Platel, she connects more readily with the European experimental tradition. “Europe has emotional guts. Dance in the UK is conservative, mostly. So, no, I don’t identify with UK performance at all.”


The last time Kewney performed in Scotland was with Platel’s Les Ballets C de la B, a company that happily integrates multiple approaches to dance and allowed Iona to express her own technique and experiences within a group context. Self-Interrupted Exhibition is a solo work, with sound support from Glasgow’s Joe Quimby. However, she acknowledges that her time with Platel and other choreographers has influenced her.


“I did my own things on stage - just strengthened my own ideas by being able to do them fully. But I saw much, and thought in other ways. The touring and mixing with diverse personages all over world is a teacher in itself.” Yet it is not just dance that feeds her work. “I think training as a gymnast, playing countless tennis competitions and playing squash, badminton and biking gives a competitive drive and hunger to perform at best or lose. Sport is a performance of a kind.”


The restless energy that courses through Kewney’s performances reflects her own path. “Initially, I trained as a fine art painter and printmaker at Duncan of Jordanstone. Eventually, the anatomical distortions of detailed realism in my drawings and the constant excessive physical training I was doing in sport - and interest in dance and other crossover ideas- drove me to physical statements and images in movement and endurance performance.”


This direction encouraged her to leave for Europe, to postgraduate study in new dance and improvisation. “One thing led to another, and I continued to perform improvised solos with musicians live on stage and improvised text.”


Her grounding in visual art, however, continues to define her creative process. She compares her work to “creating a canvas, but the composition is in time and the texture is of body in space”. And despite her rejection of UK performance, she admits an affinity with UK painters. "I do identify with their figurative style.”


From these sources, Kewney has developed a style of dance that is idiosyncratic and thrilling. As if trying to escape the limitations of the body, she twists and distorts her shape, testing its possibilities and establishing a distinctive vocabulary of movement that shames most modern dance for its lack of imagination and force. There is a sense that she is transferring the spirit of contemporary visual art, which refuses to be pigeonholed, on to the stage and abandoning pre-conceived notions of elegance and beauty.


In the past, Kewney has performed at the National Review of Live Art, and enthusiasts of free and provocative dance will be not be disappointed. At the same time, the specific aesthetic of her work does not make it unnecessarily dense or confusing: it is, at once, a laboratory of future possibility and an immediate physical expression of an interior, emotional universe, the very qualities she admire in her earlier collaborators.


“I liked the raw, animal, manly, powerful physicality of early works of Wim,” she explains. “With Alain Platel - it is the emotional psychology of movement.” Platel, in particular, has forged a distinctive path, describing “the oddities and beauty, drive and deformity and the power/weakness in states of hysteria” which has obvious similarities to Iona’s own pieces.


Kewney is “not interested in just exterior aesthetic shapes, not just what you can do”. Rather, she examines “mechanisms used to the extreme, abused to limits of hysteria”, discovering the rules of movement and then using and abusing them as she needs them to express an idea.


Undoubtedly, Self-Interrupted Exhibition will be a powerful, polarising show, refusing to bow to notions of traditional technique and allowing Iona to take her explorations of physicality into uncharted territory. Her connection to European companies is both a seal of quality and a promise of imaginative play.

Bluemouth: another repeat from 2011

DANCE MARATHON is an interactive, duration-based performance event inspired by the physically gruelling spectator sport from Depression-Era North America. It’s a genuine endurance contest and staged performance event where hopeful amateurs mix with bluemouth inc. performers under the direction of floor judges and the merciless movement of the clock to shape participation theatre.

It came to the Traverse for the Fringe in 2011. This is the transcript of an interview I did with the company at the time for The Shimmy. Here's the article, then the chat.

The rumour is that Dance Marathon represents something original - David Greig, himself  impressing the Fringe with The Strange Undoing of Prudentia Hart - has said that it willl "set fire to young audiences, new audiences, old audiences, party people and intellectuals." Video footage reveals expressive solo dances; reviews comment on the mixing of monologue and movement. References to the bleak depression-era set movie They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, which made dance contests a allegory of the despair within hope, mentions of a history of dance music, hints of a live band: Bluemouth Inc slip between genres and make the link between social and stage dance.

The company describe the work in ways that intrigue rather than clarify. "Image, sound and movement are equal in value to the words," they insist. "There are a number of layers of engagement and what you take away from it ultimately depends on what you are looking for or need as a spectator." And despite an imbedded narrative line, there is space for nightly change. "There are spotlights from other dancers, musicians and comedians performing in and around the Fringe . And who knows what Unexpected Guest may show up?"

But is there a story? “Yes, there is a narrative if you are looking for it,” they respond. “If you are looking for a dance party, it is there and that is what you will experience. We have live music, a bar, video projections and number of different competitions though out the evening.”

Bluemouth Inc have been fascinated by “durational” work – the fancy word for long  - and the site-specific. The company admit that there has been rigour in their research  - “we have used the original dance marathons as a template for our show. The embedded performers, the feelings of competition, the rest periods, guest celebrities and derby races to name a few” – and that era resonates now: “There were also a number of historical parallels between the world economy during the depression and the current housing and financial crisis in North America.”

Dance Marathon is a fine example of how the Fringe can enable – by addressing a large potential audience – work that would otherwise never get to Scotland. It’s long, so good value for money. It has a bar, so dancing is made easier. It has a plot, choreography, competitions and the chance to seduce other members of the audience between then set-pieces. It’s probably sold out already.

Where did the inspiration start for this show?
We had been working on duration based work for awhile now. One of our previous piece entitled SOMETHING ABOUT A RIVER, inspired by T.S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land, consisted of 3 parts which took place a different locations along a buried creek in Toronto called the Garrison Creek. This piece was 5 hours long and the audience traveled between locations in a school bus. The last section called of this triptych was called WHAT THE THUNDER SAID and took place in an abandoned warehouse at the base of the creek. At one point in the show we lined the entire audience up and picked teams for a softball game. Half the audience took the field while the other half of the audience got up to bat. The image meant to explored the anxiety one experiences when being picked last to participate in team sports.

The experiment was a huge leap for us as company in terms of our experiments in audience engagement. When we started working on DANCE MARATHON we discussed what it would be like to take that softball game moment and extend it to encompass an entire show. So we are not merely implementing them within the theatrical image, but actually giving the audience a meaningful and functional task within the piece.

Does it have a script?
No we don't work with a script. The pieces we create are collectively created and devised. Image, sound and movement are equal in value to the words. We rather refer to the written documentation of the work as a Performance Text. Its more a map or a score than it is a script.

Is it improvised, or is there any narrative at all?
Yes there is a narrative if you are looking for it. There are a number of layers of engagement to DANCE MARATHON and what you take away from it ultimately depends on what you are looking for or need as a spectator. If for example you are looking for a dance party, it is there and that is what you will experience. We have live music, a bar, video projections and number of different competitions though out the evening. However, if you are looking for a more rigorous theatrical through line, that is there as well nestled within the frame of the marathon competition. Their are characters embedded with in the performance who reveal themselves from time to time as the evening progresses and who knows one of them might even be your actual dance partner. There are intentionally Darwinian overtones to the entire experience, but again those tones are more or less obvious depending on how you choose to engage with the piece.

Am I really going to have to dance?
Yes you will have to dance. That is kinda the point of the piece. To ask and allow people an opportunity to fully reconnect to their bodies through music and dance is partially what is so profound about experiencing the show. It is completely democratic and non-judgemental. No one is put on the spot or is made to do anything they don't want.

Can't I just sit there and watch?
Absolutely, but now why would you want to do that? It would be like going to a friends amazing dinner party and opting not to eat or have a drink. Sure you would still have some great conversations, but you will probably leave feeling a bit hungry afterwards.


We do have one OPTIONAL ELIMINATION at the top of the show right after the very first FREE DANCE where anyone can sit and watch if they don't feel like dancing. Specifically for those poor people who got dragged to the show by a friend and had no idea what they were getting into. However, our experience has been once someone experiences the FREE DANCE and their endorphins start kicking in no one wants to sit and watch.

Is there any connection between the original period of the dance marathon and now?

We initially did a bunch of research about dance marathon in north america and have used the original dance marathons as a template for our show. The embedded performers, the feelings of competition, the rest periods, guest celebrities and derby races to name a few. There were also a number of historical parallels between the world economy during the depression and the current housing and financial crisis in North America. Most of that was unintentional when we set out to create the piece, but began discovering numerous parallels the more research we did into the dance marathon phenomena during the depression.

there seems to be a vogue for nostalgia at the moment...

We were very, very conscious not to make this piece nostalgic. That didn't interest us at all. We want it to be a contemporary look at culture. Nostalgia sort of lets the audience of the hook. That was then and this is now sort of thing. Not interesting to us. This show is about being human and being alive NOW. There is more of an affinity for current Reality Television shows and competitions like American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance.



Can we any expect any surprises -say guests?

Absolutely. We have a different Schedule Guest Celebrity for each performance. Spotlights from other Dancers, musicians and comedians performing in and around the Fringe Festival.

And who knows what Unexpected Guest may show up.

The Brahaha Broad Brings Burlesque Back

Comic Capers and Sexy Sirens

FEATURE BY GARETH K VILE.

PUBLISHED IN THE SHIMMY 04 AUGUST 2011

Cleaving to the comedy rather than the cabaret scene, and featuring an old school combo of strippers and stand-ups, Kitty Cointreau's Brahaha stood out in 2010's Fringe, the year when cabaret broke.
“I wanted to create a show that was different from the majority of other cabaret shows out there,” says Kitty Cointreau. “I love comedy and was a stand-up for a short while and wanted to bring together the two things that entertain me the most – great stand-up and gorgeous burlesque. We did face criticism at first for bringing the two styles together, but burlesque originally shared the stage with stand-up, so it seemed fitting to return to the roots of vaudeville. Two years later, BraHaHa is still alive, kicking, teasing and twirling and I’m proud to put my name to it.”

The Brahaha has established itself across the country, and at Zoo during Fringe 2010: Cointreau’s ability to pick both local and national performers allowed it to capitalise on the energy of the grass-roots movement and the rise of more professional acts. For 2011, she has added a second show to her portfolio.

“Kitty & Jonny’s Speakteasy is an experimental rock n’ roll musical comedy show that I share with my friend Duncan Oakley who is performing as Jonny Wild,” she says. “My burlesque is totally integrated and the tease is carried throughout the show until the big finale. It is a real synergy of my burlesque and Duncan’s musicianship.”

What sets Cointreau apart from the majority of performers and programmers is her interest in adapting and respecting the past. “My grandmother was a burlesque act and ENSA entertainer during World War II. She was also a contortionist and performed as 'the girl in the goldfish bowl' and did all kinds of sideshow routines. She was a great inspiration to me,” she affirms. This family history has given her a broader appreciation of what burlesque means. “I’m a great believer that burlesque should be about laughing too,” she notes. The revelation that she could connect her enthusiasms for burlesque and comedy came later. 

“It wasn’t until 2006/07 when I went to see The Candybox shows in Birmingham that I realised there was a burgeoning scene for this kind of art and an audience clearly crying out for more. I wanted to be a part of it. Seeing that show was a real turning point for me.”

The introduction of the Speakteasy marks a new phase in Cointreau’s career. “The BraHaHa takes a vaudeville approach: Programming the show every day and picking exactly the right mix of guest acts from award-winning stand-ups, to burlesque darlings, to great magicians to music acts and circus artists, is the key. Speakteasy is my rock n’ roll ‘toddler’ that allows me to work more collaboratively. The two shows offer a different style and tone to the fringe audience.”

cabaret to be added, destroyed

The exact line that connects cabaret back to dance isn’t always clear: since dance itself is so easy to spot yet difficult to define, throwing your hands in the air and everything into a genre marked “physical theatre” seems the best answer. However, there are times when a piece of physical theatre would have done well to employ dancers rather than healthy, fit actors, and the contemporary cabaret revival owes at least something to the aesthetics of dance.

Like physical theatre, cabaret includes a healthy mixture of talents: strippers, magicians like Piff the Magic Dragon, singers like Dusty Limits, rappers like Mr B alongside those indefinable performers like Tricity Vogue, the Blue Lady. The variety format, notably reinvented by Blonde Ambition at Vive Le Cabaret!, welcomes this diversity. Yet aside from wild cards like Scottee’s Eat Your Heart Out, it is rare to see short-formed choreographic dance in this programmes. Circus skills, even aerial acrobatics transfer easily enough – but why a magazine dedicated to dance now includes cabaret is still not clear.

The simple link, at least for The Shimmy, is through the neo-burlesque revival. Dance Base, which houses The Shimmy offices, has offered burlesque classes for years: the pioneering work here of Gypsy Charms and Viva Misadventure could be seen as seeding the current burlesque scene in Scotland. And burlesque, and striptease, are clearly forms of dance. When The Shimmy kicked off in 2009, burlesque was riding high in Edinburgh – both Blonde Ambition and Itsy’s Collective offered regular evenings – and most variety bills were burlesque heavy.

Ironically, just as cabaret was insisting on its own section in 2010, the neo-burlesque revival was waning. Less burlesque was appearing in the clubs – even the Bongo Club, godfather of Fringe cabaret – was booking fewer striptease acts. Confusion is Sex, the nightclub that had always had burlesque was diversifying into pole-dancing and idiosyncratic live art influenced routines.

Finally, an article in The Scotsman attacked burlesque as anti-feminist, leading to Edinburgh’s most glamorous street protest and a dynamic debate about whether the assumptions of feminist intention behind neo-burlesque were valid. Meanwhile, some burlesque acts were heading back to a raunchier tradition, abandoning the knowing wit for a more erotic emphasis. Kitty Cointeau launched the Brahaha, which got back to the comedians and strippers format. Unlike last year, when the superb Wau Wau Sisters rocked the Assembly through stripping and swinging from the ceiling – and aiming a scattershot satire at the heart of modern America, there are no burlesque only shows this year.

It has become fashionable to attack burlesque, either on aesthetic grounds or feminist. Nevertheless, the cabaret revival owes a great deal to neo-burlesque. Despite its controversial association with striptease, burlesque reintroduced parody to cabaret. Variety had been moribund since it had collapsed into a mush of insipid light entertainment and lazy comedy. Burlesque brought back the sex and satire.

Dusty Limits, the “dark prince” is not a dancer, yet his exotic blend of sexuality and mockery owes much to the style of burlesque. The association of burlesque with vintage fashion gave cabaret a style, recalled classic eras of vaudeville and cabaret, such as the Weimar Republic. Even a duo like The Creative Martyrs – Gustav and Jakob are unlikely to be cutting a caper between their mimes and songs of bleak decadence – draw on the influences burlesque rediscovered. The cabaret audiences were built by burlesque nights. 1927 honed their skills at burlesque evenings, adopting the style and format for a theatrical tour de force.

The echoes of burlesque, a dance form, multiply throughout the cabaret scene. Solo shows, like Vogue’s Blue Lady, Meow Meow  frantic bash through egomania and celebrity, Sarah Louise Young’s Cabaret Whore Trilogy pick up on a choreographic approach to subjects, deconstructing them not through a clear lineal approach but returning to them from different angles. Definitions of dance slip either into the vague or the prescriptive: cabaret performance frequently shares a creative process and structure with choreography, if not a movement vocabulary.

Inevitably, there is an agenda behind The Shimmy’s inclusion of cabaret. Last year, Bryony Kimmings, an eclectic performer who admits she is from the Live Art tradition, appeared in many variety shows. She rocked the house. Aerial is already a regular visitor to the vaudeville. Stronger links between the scenes might lead to short dance works being billed alongside Des O’Connor, expanding the audience base. If a dance publication can find space for cabaret, perhaps comperes can find slots for dancers.

Beyond this, if the burlesque scene has become moribund, a reinjection of dance might be the cure. There is still a thriving amateur scene in the central belt of Scotland: often, its stars have never bothered to learn new skills or develop their choreography beyond stylised gestures. Charms and Misadventure have always had a show-girl edge to their routines, and the best international stars have basic dance discipline – or, like Kiki Kaboom, a fierce intelligence. Blurring boundaries is little help for the poor critic, desperately trying to decipher the codes of genre. But for performers and audiences, it offers potential for great new entertainments. 

Liv Lorent - A Flashback to Fringe 2010

Many of the previous pieces that I have seen by you have had a unique approach to the relationship between dance and music: the music operates more like a soundtrack to the movement than the guide for the dancers. Is this approach a deliberate strategy, and does Blood, Sweat and Tears continue  it?
Yes, I think that you will experience a similar musical relationship to the choreography with Blood, Sweat and Tears. What I am aiming to create is a partnership of vision and sound that has an experience similar to being at the movies.
In a film the music is usually added in post production and the actors` emotional states are delivered clean of aural manipulation. This influences me - the illusion is that they are oblivious to any sound other than their own emotional state.

I think the live effect has its own wonder and I can afford to use more emotional music if the dancer manages not to "emote" to it!
For me, sitting in a studio watching the dancers move while I alone can hear the sound through ipod and headphones is quite magical. I am trying to create an experience where the music is the sound of our empathy with the dancers on stage. The challenge for the dancer is making it look like their body has not been moved by me or music.

The raising of a child is not a common theme for dance- why did you decide to make it the foundation of an ambitious trilogy of dances?
Blood, Sweat & Tears is not so much a trilogy as a work with 3 parts to it. There is The Duet - which is being shown at The Fringe, and the full length work has a cast of seven dancers and will be touring nationally in autumn and spring. As for the content, much of my work has an autobiographical perspective, and this piece was influenced by becoming a first time mother two years ago. The experience was so overwhelming to my life in every way I could not help but put that into work.
I suppose that what I love about the subject matter of the arrival of a new baby and its impact on a couple`s relationship is that it is a very dramatic and yet very common experience. I seek empathy of experience in other artists` work in whatever discipline, and equally that is what I want to offer.
As with other productions, the lighting and costume are critical parts of the choreography's overall impact. At what stage do you begin to explore these factors, and how do they inform the creation of the dances?
I am very lucky to have some completely brilliant collaborators that I
have worked with for many years now. Paul Shriek with costume and design, and Malcolm Rippeth with lighting, and Ben Ponton with sound. They respond to the choreography in its early stages - and I counter respond to what they offer the work in their respective mediums. Together we inch forward to the finalising of the work. I cannot imagine this work without these very important and inspiring people.
You have worked with Scottish Dance Theatre, who are also appearing at Zoo. Do you feel that Zoo has a particular atmosphere as a venue, and one which suits your company?
I am familiar with Zoo Southside through SDT and yes, I have really enjoyed the atmosphere and appreciated their dedication to the work. I have very good memories of working with Scottish Dance Theatre and will be supporting them always and look forward to watching the work they will be presenting this year.
I am very much looking forward to taking our Blood, Sweat & Tears duet to The Sanctuary which is one of the most inspiring venues I have ever been to.
Do you regard your choreography as being part of any particular tradition or trend in contemporary dance? Are there other companies or choreographers that you feel an affinity for?
 
Oh I love so many other choreographers' work... a really diverse range from Mats Ek, Merce Cunningham, Kenneth Macmillan,Balanchine,Wayne Macgregor, Pina Bausch - all the giants!

In the end I really love dance - in its many incarnations. I don't particularly feel part of any trend or tradition or perhaps I feel the legacy of all them...... I work in quite a solitary way in the North East of England and prefer to respect other people`s work by trying not to copy them and trying to be true to my own vision.