Midsumma
Fuck Fabulous
Arts Centre Melbourne in association with Fat Fruit
Fairfax Studio
21 April 20210
to 2 May
artscentremelbourne.com.au
 |
| Fuck Fubulous |
My review is in Witness Performance.
(Apologies for not posting it ages ago.)
Mostly Melbourne theatre reviews
Showing posts with label Jess Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jess Love. Show all posts
04 June 2021
Review: Fuck Fabulous
29 December 2013
What Finucaine & Smith loved in 2013, a New Year present
The ever-exquisite Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith wanted to include their favourite moments of 2013, but were worried that they hadn't seen much theatre in Melbourne this year, so they given everyone who reads Sometimes Melbourne, a New Year's gift of their Ten Moments of Revelation.
From ten years ago when Mary Lou said "Yes" to staging The Burlesque Hour at fortyfive downstairs, to Moira and Jackie saying "Sure" when someone wants to try something new, the last ten years of Finucane & Smith have resulted in some of the sexiest, sassiest, angriest, saddest, most outraged, most painful and most celebratory live art.
They took the negativity away from burlesque and made it an outrageously wonderful feminist celebration of women and men and love and everything else that should be celebrated far more than it is.
A while ago, I suggested that the lane way behind fortyfivedownstairs is re-named Finucaine & Smith Lane. Who do we have to hassle at the City of Melbourne to make this happen?
But over to Jackie and Moira.
Finucane & Smith travelled most of 2013. We were in Brighton, London, Paris, Buenos Aires and a few other assorted locales of glamour like Brisbane and Canberra, so we didn’t get to see much Melbourne theatre other than that which we created, but we did have some incredible revelatory moments with the art and artists of Melbourne. We have picked ten moments of New Revelation, many from artists we worked with for the first time this year, that will live in our memories for many years to come.
1. Afternoon, November, our little lo fi studio.
James Welsby comes in. We have never worked with him before. I'd met him in Tasmania a year ago, when Moira was talking about creating new work to some artists and the Finucane & Smith salon adventure approach to artistic risk taking, where we try out new work and new artistes and new collaborations: high risk art in low risk, lo-fi, low overheads salons. Well, James said he’d like to be in our next salon, and Moira said, "Sure". One year later he comes over in the afternoon, and shows us three fantastic short dance works, and then says, "I have a fourth I made it up this morning. It’s a kind of a sexy star wars dance that combines bump-n-grind, with a very lo-fi star wars costume and Ozzy Osbourne." Two months later it’s an uncontrollable hit.
2. Afternoon, October, the home of Kathryn Niesche, circus luminary of Appetite and Club Swing fame.
She wants to show us a Dutch Street organ her dad made. Handmade, handpainted, complete with Wurlitzer rolls. We love it. She has an idea about being an organ grinders monkey. She has Prince song "Organ grinder". We say, "Sure!" She gets the organ into Hares and Hyenas book shop, it’s very heavy. Two nights later she is rocking it out with her heritage organ in a monkey costume with her own personal grinders played by Lily Paskas and, yes, James Welsby. We were thrilled and her dad would have been proud.
3. Evening, February.
Everyone knows how extraordinary Vika and Linda Bulla are. But this is Vika Bull as a New Revelation. Vika Bull in the Etta James story. Every song jaw dropping. We cried. We gasped. Our jaws are still dropped many months later. She rocks in a way that is hard to describe.
4. Evening, August.
Moira is doing Iggy Pop’s "Candy" in jeans and no shirt, Iggy style, Vika and Linda Bull dressed in blue Supremes evening dresses, style on style, singing the Candy part. What an honour. What an honour. It rocked in a way that’s hard to describe.
=4. Morning, March. We have been commissioned to create the opening night event for Moomba, which we call Boom Boom Moomba. Disco seemed very important. So we created a red hot disco mama with Sarah Ward. She says, "I am not going to play a disco diva, I am going to be one." And so she proceeds to become the diva with the fever. Then she says to Jackie, "I am not going to ham it up, I will play it straight." Well anyone in Buenos Aires in October this year or Melbourne in July or on the banks of the Yarra on that hot March night would know that Sarah Ward playing it straight looks like a 1metre high white afro wig, spades of blue eye shadow, a costume that looks like an edible mirror ball, back up dancers, wild eyes, wild voice and sunglasses on the back of her head. Nice.
5. Hares & Hyena Bookshop, Late Afternoon, November.
Sarah Doogs McDougall, about 6 foot of pure larrikin circus talent walks in. She has mixed up the day and the act and comes with her hoops, but we already have a hoop act. Never mind. Can she do something on the bar we ask? Sure! She goes home and makes up a plate juggling, bottle juggling, tea towel juggling calf-eyed, sexy-silly-super-clumsy routine about a waiter being in love, and comes back the following night. She’s a hit. We call it Dumb Waiter. Look for it in the circus hall of fame.
6. Early Evening, June.
Jade Leanord, a beautiful young jazz diva, has given us a CD. We find it under a pile of dishes a few months later, and invite her to come and join us in Glory Box for a night. So she’s on the piano doing the most beautiful rendition of "Over the Rainbow", but the piano is offstage and ground level, so she needs just a tiny gentle visual support to draw the audience into her world. So one hour later, we have Ursula Martinez, of the red hanky strip fame, and Jess Love, of Candy Butchers fame, slowly processing down the catwalk, with animal heads on, holding hands, while Jess walks on champagne bottles, and they both end side of stage looking at Jade on the piano. Magic.
7. A very cold night, July.
Maude Davey. Not new to us, not new to Melbourne. But here is a new insight into her own particular genius, a celebration of what makes her such a special and irreplicable artist. And it all starts with her greeting us, in the rain, in a faux fur tippet, high heels and nothing else. And it only builds from there. Maude Davey. My Life in the Nude.
8. Morning, February.
Holly Durant is a most beautiful dancer. Last year we discovered she had a beautiful voice. This year we discovered she could act. She is a drunken agent’s assistant, bringing booze to two famous stars –played by two famous actresses Pamela Rabe and Caroline Lee – who have collapsed on a luxury hotel bed on Melbourne Cup Day. We are workshopping Jackie Smith’s New Play "The Star" on the 49th floor at Sofitel Melbourne On Collins. Holly walks into rehearsal in a skin-tight chequered race dress, with fluorescent patent-yellow, 6-inch heels and a hideous fascinator and proceeds to fall all over Pamela and reel around the room, singing snippets from earnest new original musicals. She just ‘wanted to get into character’. Gold.
9. Evening, February, Fortyfivedownstairs, turn 10.
And we remember the first time we ever went in there. We wanted to create The Burlesque Hour but no one, and we mean no one, except John Paxinos, and a few fabulous funders, was interested. I sat across from Mary Lou Jelbart, with her wonderful voice, and keen artistic sensibilities, and she looked at me carefully and said, "Yes I have seen you." Pause. "You are remarkable." Pause. "Yes". And that was it. She didn’t need to know more. And ten years later we bring the Glory Box, as it’s now known around the world, back to fortyfivedownstairs every winter. And from Angus Cerini to Patricia Cornelius, from kamahi Djordon King to Sarah Ward she is still saying Yes. Yes.
10. Afternoon, October.
We are about to go to Buenos Aires to become the first Australian company ever to be invited to Latin America’s most prestigious international arts festival (no pressure) the Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires, but first we need to drop in at a little queer bookshop where we did our first ever cabaret, The Salon. Hares & Hyenas. Nearly 20 years ago. The stage was a door on milk crates, it was byo cushion to sit on the floor, Hares & Hyenas gave the punters bubbly (to help with the floor). A sell out. So here we are, planning a return to the bookshop! As soon as we got back from Latin America! (One month of wildly experimental art, new artists, new ideas, new acts every night!). And we are looking at lights. Everything looks amazing … almost too amazing. Then we discover the wallpaper the lights are playing off is original Florence Broadhurst! That’s why it looks like a film. And they open their home up for the performers to warm up. And they prepare us special Chinese tea so we can keep our energy up. And when we come back from our triumph in Buenos Aires – where they called Moira, La Diosa, (The Goddess) and compared Glory Box to Beckett, Ionesco and Artaud, and where Moira delivered her first ever monologues in Spanish (We knew it was going to be okay when the kitchen staff stopped working to listen during the tech) – and we come home to have one of the most creative months of our recent lives.
And finally, our own special Christmas gift: seeing Jennifer Zea, Venezuelan Soul Diva – who flew to Australia just to perform for us for one night – astound people with her extraordinary and massive voice, and her Latin Soul, in the velvet and luxurious surrounds of Sofitel Melbourne On Collins as she lifted their beautiful roof!
And we say, Gracias.
We remember again why Melbourne is one of the most creative universes in the world, why the passion and energy and commitment of artists, and artisans, and people who run all kinds of incredible theatrical venues spaces and ventures, create some of the most exciting art in the world.(I'm very excited by part 8.)
From ten years ago when Mary Lou said "Yes" to staging The Burlesque Hour at fortyfive downstairs, to Moira and Jackie saying "Sure" when someone wants to try something new, the last ten years of Finucane & Smith have resulted in some of the sexiest, sassiest, angriest, saddest, most outraged, most painful and most celebratory live art.
They took the negativity away from burlesque and made it an outrageously wonderful feminist celebration of women and men and love and everything else that should be celebrated far more than it is.
A while ago, I suggested that the lane way behind fortyfivedownstairs is re-named Finucaine & Smith Lane. Who do we have to hassle at the City of Melbourne to make this happen?
But over to Jackie and Moira.
Finucane & Smith travelled most of 2013. We were in Brighton, London, Paris, Buenos Aires and a few other assorted locales of glamour like Brisbane and Canberra, so we didn’t get to see much Melbourne theatre other than that which we created, but we did have some incredible revelatory moments with the art and artists of Melbourne. We have picked ten moments of New Revelation, many from artists we worked with for the first time this year, that will live in our memories for many years to come.
1. Afternoon, November, our little lo fi studio.
James Welsby comes in. We have never worked with him before. I'd met him in Tasmania a year ago, when Moira was talking about creating new work to some artists and the Finucane & Smith salon adventure approach to artistic risk taking, where we try out new work and new artistes and new collaborations: high risk art in low risk, lo-fi, low overheads salons. Well, James said he’d like to be in our next salon, and Moira said, "Sure". One year later he comes over in the afternoon, and shows us three fantastic short dance works, and then says, "I have a fourth I made it up this morning. It’s a kind of a sexy star wars dance that combines bump-n-grind, with a very lo-fi star wars costume and Ozzy Osbourne." Two months later it’s an uncontrollable hit.
2. Afternoon, October, the home of Kathryn Niesche, circus luminary of Appetite and Club Swing fame.
She wants to show us a Dutch Street organ her dad made. Handmade, handpainted, complete with Wurlitzer rolls. We love it. She has an idea about being an organ grinders monkey. She has Prince song "Organ grinder". We say, "Sure!" She gets the organ into Hares and Hyenas book shop, it’s very heavy. Two nights later she is rocking it out with her heritage organ in a monkey costume with her own personal grinders played by Lily Paskas and, yes, James Welsby. We were thrilled and her dad would have been proud.
3. Evening, February.
Everyone knows how extraordinary Vika and Linda Bulla are. But this is Vika Bull as a New Revelation. Vika Bull in the Etta James story. Every song jaw dropping. We cried. We gasped. Our jaws are still dropped many months later. She rocks in a way that is hard to describe.
4. Evening, August.
Moira is doing Iggy Pop’s "Candy" in jeans and no shirt, Iggy style, Vika and Linda Bull dressed in blue Supremes evening dresses, style on style, singing the Candy part. What an honour. What an honour. It rocked in a way that’s hard to describe.
=4. Morning, March. We have been commissioned to create the opening night event for Moomba, which we call Boom Boom Moomba. Disco seemed very important. So we created a red hot disco mama with Sarah Ward. She says, "I am not going to play a disco diva, I am going to be one." And so she proceeds to become the diva with the fever. Then she says to Jackie, "I am not going to ham it up, I will play it straight." Well anyone in Buenos Aires in October this year or Melbourne in July or on the banks of the Yarra on that hot March night would know that Sarah Ward playing it straight looks like a 1metre high white afro wig, spades of blue eye shadow, a costume that looks like an edible mirror ball, back up dancers, wild eyes, wild voice and sunglasses on the back of her head. Nice.
5. Hares & Hyena Bookshop, Late Afternoon, November.
Sarah Doogs McDougall, about 6 foot of pure larrikin circus talent walks in. She has mixed up the day and the act and comes with her hoops, but we already have a hoop act. Never mind. Can she do something on the bar we ask? Sure! She goes home and makes up a plate juggling, bottle juggling, tea towel juggling calf-eyed, sexy-silly-super-clumsy routine about a waiter being in love, and comes back the following night. She’s a hit. We call it Dumb Waiter. Look for it in the circus hall of fame.
6. Early Evening, June.
Jade Leanord, a beautiful young jazz diva, has given us a CD. We find it under a pile of dishes a few months later, and invite her to come and join us in Glory Box for a night. So she’s on the piano doing the most beautiful rendition of "Over the Rainbow", but the piano is offstage and ground level, so she needs just a tiny gentle visual support to draw the audience into her world. So one hour later, we have Ursula Martinez, of the red hanky strip fame, and Jess Love, of Candy Butchers fame, slowly processing down the catwalk, with animal heads on, holding hands, while Jess walks on champagne bottles, and they both end side of stage looking at Jade on the piano. Magic.
7. A very cold night, July.
Maude Davey. Not new to us, not new to Melbourne. But here is a new insight into her own particular genius, a celebration of what makes her such a special and irreplicable artist. And it all starts with her greeting us, in the rain, in a faux fur tippet, high heels and nothing else. And it only builds from there. Maude Davey. My Life in the Nude.
8. Morning, February.
Holly Durant is a most beautiful dancer. Last year we discovered she had a beautiful voice. This year we discovered she could act. She is a drunken agent’s assistant, bringing booze to two famous stars –played by two famous actresses Pamela Rabe and Caroline Lee – who have collapsed on a luxury hotel bed on Melbourne Cup Day. We are workshopping Jackie Smith’s New Play "The Star" on the 49th floor at Sofitel Melbourne On Collins. Holly walks into rehearsal in a skin-tight chequered race dress, with fluorescent patent-yellow, 6-inch heels and a hideous fascinator and proceeds to fall all over Pamela and reel around the room, singing snippets from earnest new original musicals. She just ‘wanted to get into character’. Gold.
9. Evening, February, Fortyfivedownstairs, turn 10.
And we remember the first time we ever went in there. We wanted to create The Burlesque Hour but no one, and we mean no one, except John Paxinos, and a few fabulous funders, was interested. I sat across from Mary Lou Jelbart, with her wonderful voice, and keen artistic sensibilities, and she looked at me carefully and said, "Yes I have seen you." Pause. "You are remarkable." Pause. "Yes". And that was it. She didn’t need to know more. And ten years later we bring the Glory Box, as it’s now known around the world, back to fortyfivedownstairs every winter. And from Angus Cerini to Patricia Cornelius, from kamahi Djordon King to Sarah Ward she is still saying Yes. Yes.
10. Afternoon, October.
We are about to go to Buenos Aires to become the first Australian company ever to be invited to Latin America’s most prestigious international arts festival (no pressure) the Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires, but first we need to drop in at a little queer bookshop where we did our first ever cabaret, The Salon. Hares & Hyenas. Nearly 20 years ago. The stage was a door on milk crates, it was byo cushion to sit on the floor, Hares & Hyenas gave the punters bubbly (to help with the floor). A sell out. So here we are, planning a return to the bookshop! As soon as we got back from Latin America! (One month of wildly experimental art, new artists, new ideas, new acts every night!). And we are looking at lights. Everything looks amazing … almost too amazing. Then we discover the wallpaper the lights are playing off is original Florence Broadhurst! That’s why it looks like a film. And they open their home up for the performers to warm up. And they prepare us special Chinese tea so we can keep our energy up. And when we come back from our triumph in Buenos Aires – where they called Moira, La Diosa, (The Goddess) and compared Glory Box to Beckett, Ionesco and Artaud, and where Moira delivered her first ever monologues in Spanish (We knew it was going to be okay when the kitchen staff stopped working to listen during the tech) – and we come home to have one of the most creative months of our recent lives.
And finally, our own special Christmas gift: seeing Jennifer Zea, Venezuelan Soul Diva – who flew to Australia just to perform for us for one night – astound people with her extraordinary and massive voice, and her Latin Soul, in the velvet and luxurious surrounds of Sofitel Melbourne On Collins as she lifted their beautiful roof!
And we say, Gracias.
22 July 2013
Review: Glory Box Paradise
Glory Box Paradise
Finucane and Smith
13 July 2013
fortyfivedownstairs
to 11 August
fortyfivedownstairs
"Art is fueled by passion, liquor and unrealistic expectations." Welcome to Glory Box Paradise and the ninth year of Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith's subversive and celebratory burlesque where the passion is as potent as any cocktail and unrealistic expectations are turned into exquisite beauty.
Is there anything left to be said about Finucane and Smith's Burlesque Hour shows? I've run out of passionate adjectives to shout about how damn amazing this work continues to be.
Nine years ago, the first Burlesque Hour performed to an in-the-know audience at fortyfivedownstairs and later in the Speigeltent. I'd heard about it and bought a ticket for the tent. Here was something we hadn't seen before and so wanted to see so much more of.
Over 125,000 people have seen versions of The Burlesque Hour – that's more than a full MCG. Artists have come and gone and come back, it's had 50 sell-out seasons all over the world, won awards and collected multi-wordgasm reviews from critics who only disagree about the the degree of superlative.
There's a lot of burlesque in theatres and clubs, but no one is doing anything like this. So what makes this burlesque so different?
Rarely do naked women on display make other women feel good about themselves. Whether it's designed to attract a straight male gaze (that really doesn't attract all straight men) or simply because it's rare for women to publicly de-robe unless they fit an image that was created by applying good lighting, a flattering position and Photoshop.
In her current show, My Life in the Nude at La Mama (finishing this weekend), Maude Davey, who has appeared in many Burlesque Hour shows, talks about her realisation that burlesque is about declaring that you are beautiful are worthy of the audience's gaze.
"I am beautiful and worthy of your gaze" is a magnificent beginning for the many women (and men) doing weekend burlesque classes and sewing sequins on undies for their graduation show, but Glory Box Paradise leaps beyond this premise.
On a Finucane and Smith stage, nakedness has nothing to do with a boring flash of boob. With bodies that don't conform to young, spray-tanned, waxed, enhanced and starved images of female naked perfection, there's never doubt that the women performing know their own beauty – and they don't give a hoot if anyone thinks differently.
There are well over 20, 30 and 40. They have body fat and muscle and scars and marks that declare their bodies as so much more than something to gaze upon. (Moira even refuses to uses a hair straightener and goes frizzy!) And they perform work that's as sexy and powerful as it gets.
These are women who are sexual but are never sexualised. Women whose sexual power has nothing to do with control. Women whose sex lives are shameless. Women who don't support any image or idea that going to repress, disapprove or hurt. And this may be why every act is greeted with cheers.
The gaze of anyone is welcome, but this is performance that's not about earning the approval of the watcher, but about celebrating the performer and her view of the world. A view that's positive instead of critical and one that joyfully leans to the queer side of the spectrum while welcoming anyone who sits anywhere else.
And if you think you've seen it all before, this year is mostly new material, with a couple of old favourites.
Yumi Umiumare is back with genre re-defining punk Butoh, and dancer Holly Durant joined by new performer Lily Paskas. Melbourne favourite Jess Love (The Candy Butchers) is living in London these days, but is back home with some amazing and hilariously off-centre hoop and skipping routines. She also comes with Ursula Martinez. Ursula continues to treat with her disappearing red hanky and her sex change quick change number with Jess is pure joy (with a hint of raunchy goodness).
New to the Box is Sarah Ward and her alter ego Yana Alana. Yana's naked blue real-women-look-like-this gorgeousness thrilled audiences last week in her own show Between the Cracks, but Yana's lets Sarah out to play. In a mesmerising hologram silver corset, her duet of "Candy" with Moira's drag king is a highlight. The only one who nearly overshadows Sarah is Yana, whose cat-suited song about cats has left me singing "pussy wussy wussy" to my cat.
And there's Moira. There's no one like her. As an artist she creates work that is so from her heart and self that no one will ever be able to recreate it. It's gutsy and lusty and masculine and feminine and refuses to be anything that isn't Moira Finucane.
Photos by Carla Gottgens.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
Finucane and Smith
13 July 2013
fortyfivedownstairs
to 11 August
fortyfivedownstairs
"Art is fueled by passion, liquor and unrealistic expectations." Welcome to Glory Box Paradise and the ninth year of Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith's subversive and celebratory burlesque where the passion is as potent as any cocktail and unrealistic expectations are turned into exquisite beauty.
Is there anything left to be said about Finucane and Smith's Burlesque Hour shows? I've run out of passionate adjectives to shout about how damn amazing this work continues to be.
Nine years ago, the first Burlesque Hour performed to an in-the-know audience at fortyfivedownstairs and later in the Speigeltent. I'd heard about it and bought a ticket for the tent. Here was something we hadn't seen before and so wanted to see so much more of.
Over 125,000 people have seen versions of The Burlesque Hour – that's more than a full MCG. Artists have come and gone and come back, it's had 50 sell-out seasons all over the world, won awards and collected multi-wordgasm reviews from critics who only disagree about the the degree of superlative.
There's a lot of burlesque in theatres and clubs, but no one is doing anything like this. So what makes this burlesque so different?
Rarely do naked women on display make other women feel good about themselves. Whether it's designed to attract a straight male gaze (that really doesn't attract all straight men) or simply because it's rare for women to publicly de-robe unless they fit an image that was created by applying good lighting, a flattering position and Photoshop.
In her current show, My Life in the Nude at La Mama (finishing this weekend), Maude Davey, who has appeared in many Burlesque Hour shows, talks about her realisation that burlesque is about declaring that you are beautiful are worthy of the audience's gaze.
"I am beautiful and worthy of your gaze" is a magnificent beginning for the many women (and men) doing weekend burlesque classes and sewing sequins on undies for their graduation show, but Glory Box Paradise leaps beyond this premise.
On a Finucane and Smith stage, nakedness has nothing to do with a boring flash of boob. With bodies that don't conform to young, spray-tanned, waxed, enhanced and starved images of female naked perfection, there's never doubt that the women performing know their own beauty – and they don't give a hoot if anyone thinks differently.
There are well over 20, 30 and 40. They have body fat and muscle and scars and marks that declare their bodies as so much more than something to gaze upon. (Moira even refuses to uses a hair straightener and goes frizzy!) And they perform work that's as sexy and powerful as it gets.
These are women who are sexual but are never sexualised. Women whose sexual power has nothing to do with control. Women whose sex lives are shameless. Women who don't support any image or idea that going to repress, disapprove or hurt. And this may be why every act is greeted with cheers.
The gaze of anyone is welcome, but this is performance that's not about earning the approval of the watcher, but about celebrating the performer and her view of the world. A view that's positive instead of critical and one that joyfully leans to the queer side of the spectrum while welcoming anyone who sits anywhere else.
And if you think you've seen it all before, this year is mostly new material, with a couple of old favourites.
Yumi Umiumare is back with genre re-defining punk Butoh, and dancer Holly Durant joined by new performer Lily Paskas. Melbourne favourite Jess Love (The Candy Butchers) is living in London these days, but is back home with some amazing and hilariously off-centre hoop and skipping routines. She also comes with Ursula Martinez. Ursula continues to treat with her disappearing red hanky and her sex change quick change number with Jess is pure joy (with a hint of raunchy goodness).
New to the Box is Sarah Ward and her alter ego Yana Alana. Yana's naked blue real-women-look-like-this gorgeousness thrilled audiences last week in her own show Between the Cracks, but Yana's lets Sarah out to play. In a mesmerising hologram silver corset, her duet of "Candy" with Moira's drag king is a highlight. The only one who nearly overshadows Sarah is Yana, whose cat-suited song about cats has left me singing "pussy wussy wussy" to my cat.
And there's Moira. There's no one like her. As an artist she creates work that is so from her heart and self that no one will ever be able to recreate it. It's gutsy and lusty and masculine and feminine and refuses to be anything that isn't Moira Finucane.
Photos by Carla Gottgens.
This was on AussieTheatre.com.
14 March 2010
Review: Tooth and Nail
Tooth and Nail
The Candy Butchers
12 March 2010
La Mama
The next time I think there’s no room in my brain for a spectacular thought, I’m going to remember that The Candy Butchers found room in La Mama for a double trapeze and a tissue routine.
Azaria Universe and Jess Love were a fingernail’s length away from bruises, but their aerial work is still as awesome as any flown in big tops.
In Tooth and Nail, The Candy Butchers join Finucane and Smith’s delectable Salon de Dance and the droolable Feast of Argentina Gina Catalina to make a March visit to La Mama even more scrumptious, outrageous and unnerving.
The Candy Butchers recreate old-time circus, but never forget that circuses were once the only place that freaks could feel at home. This is circus for grown ups with the kind of clowning that make us understand why some youngsters are terrified of clowns.
While not as bloody as Love’s recent The Little One Said (soon at Melbourne's Comedy Festival), Tooth and Nail continues the Butcher’s slightly macabre look at what goes wrong in circus.
Azaria and Jess bicker over routines that Azaria can’t get right, but Azaria gets a pair of Jess’s tights for her collection and Jess unwittingly exposes herself every time she walks through a door. And Derek Ives... I’m not sure what Derek was up to, but he supplied title’s tooth gag (and rigged the room so the girls could fly).
For all its absurd weirdness, acrobatic wonderfulness and satirical hilarity, Tooth and Nail could do with an extra hammer bang to fix the wobbly narrative. The final scenes are gorgeous because they are so oddly disconnected from the rest of the show, but the nature of an audience is to try to make connections with what has gone before and look for story patterns that may or may not exist.
But narrative consistency is about as important as the pips in a toffee apple. Tooth and Nail is nostalgic, juicy and a perfect combination of tooth-rotting bad and keep-the-doctor-away good. So leave any expectations at home and take a jaw breaking bite.
This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com
The Candy Butchers
12 March 2010
La Mama
The next time I think there’s no room in my brain for a spectacular thought, I’m going to remember that The Candy Butchers found room in La Mama for a double trapeze and a tissue routine.
Azaria Universe and Jess Love were a fingernail’s length away from bruises, but their aerial work is still as awesome as any flown in big tops.
In Tooth and Nail, The Candy Butchers join Finucane and Smith’s delectable Salon de Dance and the droolable Feast of Argentina Gina Catalina to make a March visit to La Mama even more scrumptious, outrageous and unnerving.
The Candy Butchers recreate old-time circus, but never forget that circuses were once the only place that freaks could feel at home. This is circus for grown ups with the kind of clowning that make us understand why some youngsters are terrified of clowns.
While not as bloody as Love’s recent The Little One Said (soon at Melbourne's Comedy Festival), Tooth and Nail continues the Butcher’s slightly macabre look at what goes wrong in circus.
Azaria and Jess bicker over routines that Azaria can’t get right, but Azaria gets a pair of Jess’s tights for her collection and Jess unwittingly exposes herself every time she walks through a door. And Derek Ives... I’m not sure what Derek was up to, but he supplied title’s tooth gag (and rigged the room so the girls could fly).
For all its absurd weirdness, acrobatic wonderfulness and satirical hilarity, Tooth and Nail could do with an extra hammer bang to fix the wobbly narrative. The final scenes are gorgeous because they are so oddly disconnected from the rest of the show, but the nature of an audience is to try to make connections with what has gone before and look for story patterns that may or may not exist.
But narrative consistency is about as important as the pips in a toffee apple. Tooth and Nail is nostalgic, juicy and a perfect combination of tooth-rotting bad and keep-the-doctor-away good. So leave any expectations at home and take a jaw breaking bite.
This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com
08 March 2010
Review: Salon De Dance...Deluge
Salon De Dance...Deluge
Finucane and Smith
5 March 2010
La Mama
Bienvenue à la deuxième Salon De Dance, avec beaucoup de merde franglais et la gall to call itself Deluge.
The independent theatre world takes its art very seriously, but Finucane and Smith’s salone is about having fun, some Absinthe and a dance with a good looking stranger in the brand spanking new La Mama courtyard.
In its second year, Salone de Dance...Deluge lets some of our favourite performers show us the stuff that doesn’t always fit into shows. Sometimes it’s very funny, sometimes very personal, sometimes a bit odd and even a bit indulgent – but the combination is brilliant and seedy and sexy and I hope the La Salone returns to La Mama regularly.
This year Azaria Universe writhes with razor blades; Jess Love makes martinis; Paul Cordeiro gets out his Michael Jackson wig; Brian Lucas let me dance with him and showed us his own special ‘Something’ ; and Rob McCredie, Harriet Ritchie and Holly Durant are back.
Special guest Christopher Green from the UK (who I’ve only just recognised as the fabulously wonderful Tina C) brings a new level of wow to Yumi Umiumare’s always extraordinary butoh by singing as she dances, and later proves that you don’t need tits to be Molly Blume.
Moira Finucane recovers from The Feast of Argentina Gina Catalina (there is no question about it – see both shows), puts on the hard rock, the white uniform and brings out a meat pie and sauce. Everyone who has seen her over the years knows what happens when Moira has food on stage, but she still gives us something unexpected.
And, of course, it’s hosted by Maude Davey. On Friday night she mocked the passing shower as she introduced the la Deluge and appreciated the irony when she sang “I can’t stand the rain”. After Saturday, I have to wonder if we offended someone or something very powerful. (For anyone not in Melbourne, on Saturday the rain fell on our city in a way we had never seen.)
This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.
Salon de Dance 2009
Finucane and Smith
5 March 2010
La Mama
Bienvenue à la deuxième Salon De Dance, avec beaucoup de merde franglais et la gall to call itself Deluge.
The independent theatre world takes its art very seriously, but Finucane and Smith’s salone is about having fun, some Absinthe and a dance with a good looking stranger in the brand spanking new La Mama courtyard.
In its second year, Salone de Dance...Deluge lets some of our favourite performers show us the stuff that doesn’t always fit into shows. Sometimes it’s very funny, sometimes very personal, sometimes a bit odd and even a bit indulgent – but the combination is brilliant and seedy and sexy and I hope the La Salone returns to La Mama regularly.
This year Azaria Universe writhes with razor blades; Jess Love makes martinis; Paul Cordeiro gets out his Michael Jackson wig; Brian Lucas let me dance with him and showed us his own special ‘Something’ ; and Rob McCredie, Harriet Ritchie and Holly Durant are back.
Special guest Christopher Green from the UK (who I’ve only just recognised as the fabulously wonderful Tina C) brings a new level of wow to Yumi Umiumare’s always extraordinary butoh by singing as she dances, and later proves that you don’t need tits to be Molly Blume.
Moira Finucane recovers from The Feast of Argentina Gina Catalina (there is no question about it – see both shows), puts on the hard rock, the white uniform and brings out a meat pie and sauce. Everyone who has seen her over the years knows what happens when Moira has food on stage, but she still gives us something unexpected.
And, of course, it’s hosted by Maude Davey. On Friday night she mocked the passing shower as she introduced the la Deluge and appreciated the irony when she sang “I can’t stand the rain”. After Saturday, I have to wonder if we offended someone or something very powerful. (For anyone not in Melbourne, on Saturday the rain fell on our city in a way we had never seen.)
This review appeared on AussieTheatre.com.
Salon de Dance 2009
07 October 2009
And The Little One Said
MELBOURNE FRINGE 2009
And The Little One Said
Jess Love
The Candy Butchers
3 October 2009
Fringe Hub, North Melbourne Town Hall
Although we may be used to seeing Jess Love flying above our heads, it's lovely to see her playing on the ground in her first solo show: And The Little One Said.
Ready for a night of rhymes and tales, Jess is clad in pink and tulle, but, like finding a bloody tooth in your fairy floss, her 'toys' don't want to play nice and her playground hides some nasty secrets.
Delightfully quirky and gorgeously gruesome, Jess's collection of fractured fairy tales and games-gone-wrong pervert her sweetness until she accepts the madness and dares the blood to flow.
If you loved Jess in The Candy Butchers and her guest appearances in The Burlesque Hour, you'll be just as thrilled with the hoop, skating and tumbling of And The Little One Said. And she obeys one of my favourite rules of circus: if you see a roofing nail, you know where it has to go.
More 2009 Fringe reviews.
And The Little One Said
Jess Love
The Candy Butchers
3 October 2009
Fringe Hub, North Melbourne Town Hall
Although we may be used to seeing Jess Love flying above our heads, it's lovely to see her playing on the ground in her first solo show: And The Little One Said.
Ready for a night of rhymes and tales, Jess is clad in pink and tulle, but, like finding a bloody tooth in your fairy floss, her 'toys' don't want to play nice and her playground hides some nasty secrets.
Delightfully quirky and gorgeously gruesome, Jess's collection of fractured fairy tales and games-gone-wrong pervert her sweetness until she accepts the madness and dares the blood to flow.
If you loved Jess in The Candy Butchers and her guest appearances in The Burlesque Hour, you'll be just as thrilled with the hoop, skating and tumbling of And The Little One Said. And she obeys one of my favourite rules of circus: if you see a roofing nail, you know where it has to go.
More 2009 Fringe reviews.
30 June 2009
Burlesque Hour Legends
Burlesque Hour Legends
Finucane and Smith
25 June 2009
forty five downstairs
I’m searching for a superlative that hasn’t been used to describe The Burlesque Hour. Reviewers from all over the world rave every time this show appears. Created in Melbourne, it’s back home as The Burlesque Hour Legends and I’m trawling my thesaurus for any word that comes near to grasping the wildness, the sassiness, the spectacle, the irony and the understanding behind the show that continues to leave my brain wet and wanting more.
The term burlesque is readily applied to anything that shows a bit of nude and, too often, this results in moments that leave some of the audience feeling uncomfortable, inadequate or just sad that women continue to let themselves be seen as something less than a whole person. It’s not easy to take the exploitation and the wank factor away from strip.
This is where director Jackie Smith and performer Moira Finucane stepped in and, with other like-minded performers, perfected a style that has re-defined burlesque as political, inspirational and liberating. Strip is, of course, about exposure, but the exposure of bodies doesn’t compare to the exposure of secrets, of longings and of the unexpected. It’s still also totally hot and squeal-out-loud hilarious.
Don’t give it a miss this year because you’ve seen this show before. Legends is mostly new material and has an overall more rounded and complete feel about it. The regular performers explore some of their favourite themes from new perspectives and new guests try out their ideas. This does mean that some of the most loved moments are missing, but the new compensates for the loss of the old.
Yumi Umiumare’s new pieces are extraordinary. With characters including a lost and manic Tokyo pop singer and an office worker (or an executive) trapped in a suit of regret and longing, her Butoh inspired choreography is unsettling in its ability to grasp the essence of a character and expand it to a point that it’s almost overwhelming. I’m looking forward to her solo show at Malthouse in August.
Maude Davey changes the pace with dancing words, discussing her grandmother’s cunt, and her faded showgirl’s “Say Goodbye” must be what Mark Seymour’s unconscious was thinking when he wrote the urban anthem.
Then there’s Moira Finucane, whose new Veil act may well be responsible for making smoking an acceptable social habit again. With Jackie Smith, she continues to create work that challenges every boring and clichéd notion of femininity and sexuality. Her electrifying grotesques are powerful, terrifying and disturbing, but they affirm that the real grotesques are those who want women to look like 20-year-old size 0s, cook like their mums and fuck like blow up dolls.
And that’s just week one and two! The Burlesque Hour Legends changes every two weeks. The incredible Azaria Universe returns on July 12, as the marvellous Maude leaves, along with swinging Jess Love. But plan for at least three Burlesque trips in order to see the special guests. The blissful Paul Capsis joins the girls from 9 to 19 July, then Toni Lamond (yes Toni Lamond!) will be confirming her own legendary status from 23 July to 2 August. Which only leaves until July 11 to see Ursula Martinez. Ursula has been seen at La Clique with her nearly-ethnic dilemma and her perfected the red hanky strip, but she brings more to Legends, with an opening act that sets the room on fire.
Photo by Jodie Hutchinson
This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.
Finucane and Smith
25 June 2009
forty five downstairs
I’m searching for a superlative that hasn’t been used to describe The Burlesque Hour. Reviewers from all over the world rave every time this show appears. Created in Melbourne, it’s back home as The Burlesque Hour Legends and I’m trawling my thesaurus for any word that comes near to grasping the wildness, the sassiness, the spectacle, the irony and the understanding behind the show that continues to leave my brain wet and wanting more.
The term burlesque is readily applied to anything that shows a bit of nude and, too often, this results in moments that leave some of the audience feeling uncomfortable, inadequate or just sad that women continue to let themselves be seen as something less than a whole person. It’s not easy to take the exploitation and the wank factor away from strip.
This is where director Jackie Smith and performer Moira Finucane stepped in and, with other like-minded performers, perfected a style that has re-defined burlesque as political, inspirational and liberating. Strip is, of course, about exposure, but the exposure of bodies doesn’t compare to the exposure of secrets, of longings and of the unexpected. It’s still also totally hot and squeal-out-loud hilarious.
Don’t give it a miss this year because you’ve seen this show before. Legends is mostly new material and has an overall more rounded and complete feel about it. The regular performers explore some of their favourite themes from new perspectives and new guests try out their ideas. This does mean that some of the most loved moments are missing, but the new compensates for the loss of the old.
Yumi Umiumare’s new pieces are extraordinary. With characters including a lost and manic Tokyo pop singer and an office worker (or an executive) trapped in a suit of regret and longing, her Butoh inspired choreography is unsettling in its ability to grasp the essence of a character and expand it to a point that it’s almost overwhelming. I’m looking forward to her solo show at Malthouse in August.
Maude Davey changes the pace with dancing words, discussing her grandmother’s cunt, and her faded showgirl’s “Say Goodbye” must be what Mark Seymour’s unconscious was thinking when he wrote the urban anthem.
Then there’s Moira Finucane, whose new Veil act may well be responsible for making smoking an acceptable social habit again. With Jackie Smith, she continues to create work that challenges every boring and clichéd notion of femininity and sexuality. Her electrifying grotesques are powerful, terrifying and disturbing, but they affirm that the real grotesques are those who want women to look like 20-year-old size 0s, cook like their mums and fuck like blow up dolls.
And that’s just week one and two! The Burlesque Hour Legends changes every two weeks. The incredible Azaria Universe returns on July 12, as the marvellous Maude leaves, along with swinging Jess Love. But plan for at least three Burlesque trips in order to see the special guests. The blissful Paul Capsis joins the girls from 9 to 19 July, then Toni Lamond (yes Toni Lamond!) will be confirming her own legendary status from 23 July to 2 August. Which only leaves until July 11 to see Ursula Martinez. Ursula has been seen at La Clique with her nearly-ethnic dilemma and her perfected the red hanky strip, but she brings more to Legends, with an opening act that sets the room on fire.
Photo by Jodie Hutchinson
This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.
30 March 2009
Salon de Dance
Salon de Dance
La Mama
Finucane & Smith
22 March 2009
La Mama Theatre
I’ve written a lot this week about authenticity, originality and other words we bandy around in regard to art. All are difficult to define, but obvious when we see them. The cabaret/burlesque/butoh/gothic/ bloody-terrific creations of Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith continue to be both – and so much more.
LaMama is transformed into a back ally Kabaret with pale crushed-velvet table clothes, candles and swinging light blubs, highlighted with sips of bright green absinthe (that may have been crème de menthe) and carefree toasts to La Danse. If you bring some coins, you can even buy your own dance during the most perfect of intervals.
From the bizarre to the gorgeous, la tres French Maude Davey hosts the soiree’s collection – all in a space barely big enough for a full split (as Paul Cordeiro demonstrates with ease, in a pair of crucifix decorated undies). None is suitable for a prime time telly “competition” – and for that, I’ll have another swig of green liquor and declare Viva! This isn’t dance that’s rated by popularity; this is dance that breaks the rules and lets us see what lurks in the hearts and thoughts of the dancers.
Jess Love combines ease with distress en pointe – with hoops; Rob McCredie charms with freestyle in a tux; Yumi Umimare battles with a possessed coat; Codreiro shows us his god complex; Holly Durant and Harriet Ritchie burst some fantasies about tits; and Moira barely moves, but her partnership with the smoke from a cigarette makes me want to abandon a life of non-smoking.
The most complete piece of the night is The Banquet Room directed by Jackie. Recently performed in Japan, it was described by one reviewer as,” The most shocking dance I've ever seen in my life.” Its gothic inspired butoh style is exaggerated, extreme, unexpected and macabre; it’s everything that dance isn’t meant to be – and all the more wonderful for it.
Finucane and Smith productions welcome audiences into their world, which, for all its darkness and oddness, lets us feel the liberation of unhinged and unencumbered passion.
Great shows find audiences, so Salone de Danse (and its scrumptious partner The Feast of Argentina Gina Catalina ) are already sold out – but turn up early and there’s a good chance of getting a seat at the door.
This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.
La Mama
Finucane & Smith
22 March 2009
La Mama Theatre
So you think you know dance? Forgive the television analogy, but you don’t know squat until you’ve been to Salone de Dance.
LaMama is transformed into a back ally Kabaret with pale crushed-velvet table clothes, candles and swinging light blubs, highlighted with sips of bright green absinthe (that may have been crème de menthe) and carefree toasts to La Danse. If you bring some coins, you can even buy your own dance during the most perfect of intervals.
From the bizarre to the gorgeous, la tres French Maude Davey hosts the soiree’s collection – all in a space barely big enough for a full split (as Paul Cordeiro demonstrates with ease, in a pair of crucifix decorated undies). None is suitable for a prime time telly “competition” – and for that, I’ll have another swig of green liquor and declare Viva! This isn’t dance that’s rated by popularity; this is dance that breaks the rules and lets us see what lurks in the hearts and thoughts of the dancers.
Jess Love combines ease with distress en pointe – with hoops; Rob McCredie charms with freestyle in a tux; Yumi Umimare battles with a possessed coat; Codreiro shows us his god complex; Holly Durant and Harriet Ritchie burst some fantasies about tits; and Moira barely moves, but her partnership with the smoke from a cigarette makes me want to abandon a life of non-smoking.
The most complete piece of the night is The Banquet Room directed by Jackie. Recently performed in Japan, it was described by one reviewer as,” The most shocking dance I've ever seen in my life.” Its gothic inspired butoh style is exaggerated, extreme, unexpected and macabre; it’s everything that dance isn’t meant to be – and all the more wonderful for it.
Finucane and Smith productions welcome audiences into their world, which, for all its darkness and oddness, lets us feel the liberation of unhinged and unencumbered passion.
Great shows find audiences, so Salone de Danse (and its scrumptious partner The Feast of Argentina Gina Catalina ) are already sold out – but turn up early and there’s a good chance of getting a seat at the door.
This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com.
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