There is a large distance between the impression given in the description of this show on the EdFringe site and my experience of the performance. The show description speaks of a ‘group portrait’ of women trying to maintain balance in ‘contemporary society loaded with expectations’ and ‘a voyage of self-discovery’.
The individual parts do not make a whole
Actually the show is mainly a series of well performed but disparate circus acrobat sequences by a female troupe with occasional gestures towards symbolic meaning. There is no apparent continuous thread between the different elements. The individual parts do not make up a whole. For example, there is a skillful acrobatic solo act involving a table. The table has text written on it (translated in the program leaflet). Just a few of these keywords are ‘desire’, ‘feminism’, ‘freedom’, ‘male/father’, ‘stereotype’, ‘envy’, ‘beauty’. But there is nothing to connect these words to the individual acrobatic or dance sections, and there is no discernable thread connecting any themes at all across the different sequences.
Although the EdFringe description emphasises the female led nature of the show, there are also appearances by an androgynous solo act. These are along conceptual-art lines and present tableau-style costumes or scenes of repetition. These don’t have any apparent connection to the performances of the solo or group performances of the girls. So there is a mixture of typical circus acrobatics with a few performance-art style pieces bolted on, as if in afterthought.
On the positive side: there is a good music soundtrack, the girl acrobats are highly skilled, the choreography is tightly coordinated between them in the dance sequences, and they perform a wide variety of routines from human pyramids to flirty pop videos.
If you like pure acrobatics and don’t mind performance-art interruptions then there is something for you in this show. For fans of deep exploration of themes or of performance-art, there are stronger shows elsewhere.
