“Creaky plot apart, Peter Pan’s Labyrinth is loaded with sparkling gifts for the audience.”
If The Sleeping Trees are back in town, it must be panto time. Well, sort of. For one thing, we’ve only just climbed out of our Halloween costumes. How lucky for us that The Sleeping Trees’ by now familiar formula of mashing together well loved folk tales, allows us to enjoy November and the holiday season in a whole new way. Putting together Peter Pan with Labyrinth is certainly an eye opening take on two classic favourites. If you are curious to see what happens when Peter Pan actually does grow up, and how he manages to end up trapped in The Goblin King’s Labyrinth, hurry along to the Vaults near Waterloo Station. But don’t take the kids with you this time. Because Peter Pan’s Labyrinth is an adult panto. Besides, who wants to spend time explaining the jokes to the kids when you could be singing and dancing along with Ziggy Stardust instead?
Peter Pan’s Labyrinth is the same kind of unlikely mash up as the Sleeping Trees’ 2020 Moby Dick Whittington. Sadly, the 2022 combo isn’t quite as successful as the earlier production, even though it’s fantastic to see the Trees back on stage instead of in front of the camera. The inventive energy of the performances, the set and costume design (Maeve Black), and effortless rapport with the audience is still there. Sound design (Ben Hales) and Lighting Design (Clancy Flynn) are strong in The Vaults’ rather gloomy setting. Perhaps the plot problem is that Peter Pan’s Labyrinth really is about Peter Pan, and the Labyrinth part of the story mostly functions as a way of bringing on David Bowie in his fabulous wig and costumes. At any rate, Peter seems to spend a long time finding his way out of the Labyrinth, even if it is explained by the fact that he is now middle aged and unable to fly. Not even Kermit the Frog, and random appearances of characters from Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth are of much help to a man who has lost his job, his flat, and the fairy who used to be his best friend. It is left to the Goblin King to take pity on Peter and get him to Neverland in time to stop an unfortunate wedding. You’ve probably guessed by now who gets to be the baby that the King takes as his reward.
Creaky plot apart, Peter Pan’s Labyrinth is loaded with sparkling gifts for the audience. The biggest gift is Dan Wye as Bowie, aka the Goblin King, himself. Wye almost steals the entire show. He’s too smart to play the role as pure drag, however. What we get instead is a very elegant, ironic performance all dressed up as an entertainer who can sing beautifully. It does honour to King Goblin, and it’s just Bowie-like enough to make us remember Ziggy and hope he’s somewhere cool, enjoying Wye’s performance. Wye has some serious competition in the trio of the Sleeping Trees, naturally. James Dunnell-Smith, John Woodburn and Joshua George Smith take on the roles of Wendy, Captain Hook, and Peter — and a whole host of unexpected cameos as well. The usual comedy mayhem ensues, and the audience is invited to join in often.
Peter Pan’s Labyrinth is a fun night out—not for the family perhaps, but the Sleeping Trees also have a family friendly show, Little Red Robin Hood, coming to the Battersea Arts Centre later on in the holiday season. In the meantime, you and your friends will get lots of pleasure from singing along with The Goblin King, and enjoying some fabulously punny cocktails at the bar.
“The thought and discipline that goes into making a show like Tanz is on conspicuous display throughout”
Audience members for Tanz are warned ahead of time of “the explicit nudity, self-harming body acts, blood and needles, strobe (lighting) and loud music”, and these are warnings that should be taken seriously. If anything, they understate what you are about to see in this extraordinary work by choreographer Florentina Holzinger and her all female company of dancers and circus performers. That said, Tanz is all about pushing limitations and boundaries. If that’s what interests you about live performance, then don’t miss this show. Tanz is a remarkable work by a ground breaking artist who has serious things to say about power relationships between bodies, and ourselves. About what bodies can endure, and, for that matter, what audiences can endure as well. All performances are relaxed at the Battersea Arts Centre for this show, so by all means take advantage of the opportunity if you need it.
Holzinger came late to the world of dance, and soon realized that she had not begun her training early enough to achieve the physical training needed to succeed as a classical ballet dancer. There’s a reason dancers typically embark on their training as children, as they are aiming for a particular “look” to the body, as well as flexibility. The realization of the uncompromising, even tyrannical demands upon the body in dance, is one of the central insights that informs Holzinger’s work. That, and a deeply ironic look at how we represent ourselves through our bodies in life, and in art. She turns those realizations into a series of ever more outrageous, taboo breaking, parodies of dance, all dressed up as circus acts. Though perhaps undressed would be a better description, since nudity is a key component of all this insight. Holzinger turns the gaze of everyone present on the power dynamics between teacher and student, choreographer (traditionally overwhelmingly male), and dancer (mostly female), performer and audience. In Tanz (the German word for dance), everything that we might have held sacred about our bodies and how to use them, is held up for ruthless dissection on stage. I am not speaking metaphorically here.
In Tanz, the audience is made to see bodies as vulnerable, but paradoxically, invulnerable. There are moments when a stunt appears to go wrong—such as a motorcycle accident on stage—but these moments are anomalies. We see that dance is inherently destructive, beginning with the rehearsal process. Holzinger and her company force us to acknowledge the real cost of the pursuit of the performer’s art. How better to show this than through a series of ever more boundary breaking circus acts? Acts involving motorcycles, broomsticks, and hair-raising stunts of being raised by your hair, and suspended on hooks, to name just a few. Enduring pain is the point, and the company dares us to look away each time they find new ways to explore the limits of what the human body can withstand. But again, all this endurance is not just for show. Holzinger explodes the myth that dance is just beautiful bodies performing on stage for the audience’s pleasure. That pleasure comes at a price, and she and her company reflect, in a very ironic way, the price of that pleasure.
The thought and discipline that goes into making a show like Tanz is on conspicuous display throughout. There are no wings to hide the machinery, and a curtain is seldom used. We see the discipline in the movements of the performers. Many, but not all, have classical dance backgrounds. Florentina Holzinger, Renée Copraij, Lucifire, Lydia Darling, Annina Machaz, Netti Nüganen, Suzn Pasyon, Veronica Thompson, Claire Philippart, Sophie Duncan and Frida Franceschini bring a truly diverse collection of looks and talents to the company. There’s an equally disciplined approach to the complicated mechanics involving trapeze wires and harnesses to ensure the performers’ safety, if not their comfort. The music, sound effects and lighting effects all contribute to the intense and heightened experience that is Tanz.
It is safe to say that during Tanz, you will, at some point, find out what your boundaries are. It might not be an enjoyable experience, but it will send you home with much to think about. It has the power to change the way you see the world, and your place in it. And if Tanz does fail to connect as an intense experience— well, that’s just one more way for the audience to sit and think about what we’re actually doing—and supporting—when we sit in our seats, enjoying a show.
