Sutra @ The Playhouse (Brisbane Festival), 8th September 2010 – Live Review
[Image courtesy Brisbane Festival – Photo Credit: Hugo Glendinning]
Bodies twirling through the air, gravity defying leaps and rod straight limbs in perfect turns: the Shaolin monks have come to town. Part of a new contemporary dance performance, their fighting skills are being used to story tell and entertain in another’s vision.
Artist Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui is the man who has married the martial with the contemporary, travelling to China to live with and learn from the monks. His involvement in the temple life must have been deep and overwhelmingly positive: not only has Cherkaoui managed to capture the monks centuries old, tradition honed skills and use them effectively in a modern, western performance style, he convinced them to leave their Buddhist temple and to perform as part of the Brisbane Festival.
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Danza Contemporanea De Cuba @ The Playhouse (Brisbane Festival), 15th September 2010 – Live Review
 [Image courtesy Brisbane Festival] |
Review: Lana Harris
Young and old wait in the shadows for the outsiders. Excited and unsure about what to expect from these strangers, from this contemporary dance troupe from the other side of the world, the other side of governance. Their entrance: a few members trickle onto the stage, in silence and unadorned. |
Cantina @ The Spiegeltent (Brisbane Festival) 5th September 2010 – Live Review
[Image courtesy Brisbane Festival]
Have you heard the one about the Spiegeltent? A girl and a guy walk into this travelling bar – a pointy topped sphere shaped by mirrors, wood and glass. Golden poles, blood red velvet curtains swooping overhead, low lighting and dancing shadows. Smoky. Drinks service on the curve, booths hugging the circumference. A big-top boudoir with an audience.
The girl and the guy start out cautious in this ringmaster’s playground. They clamber carefully onto the high wire – wobble and steady, wobble and steady. She wears a pair of lasciviously red heels as she teeters. The shoes return sporadically throughout the acts, as do the scene setting ukulele and tinkling pianola. Music through out invokes alternately past, present and future – offered in no particular order. Subject to whims and acrobatics, time periods depart and return often.
French Breakfast on The Goodwill Bridge (Brisbane Festival) – 5th September 2010 – Live Review
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Is knitting French? The first glimpses of the Goodwill a la Paris show a portaloo covered in crochet and various other styles of weaved wool, ministered to by a lady who appears to be wearing a full pants suit made of crochet squares. Disappointingly, up close this is just a pattern on ordinary |
fabric. The knitting display continues onto the bridge, incorporating the French theme with some knitted croissants.
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