Strange. Extraordinary. Exquisite. Intriguing. This performance is all of that and more. A collage of intricate moments that don't easily lend themselves to the usual shorthand categorisation. In a way it's like being allowed into some eccentric collector's cabinet of curiosities: breathtaking beauty rubs shoulders with the bizarre, while there's a peepshow element of freakishness and possible horror. But, whereas the ''finds'' in such a cabinet would be stored away in drawers or jars of preservatives, here all the parts bare - indeed (sympathetically choreographed by Lindsay John) they move among us as we promenade through the long shadows. Sometimes the performers even approach us, gently, without threat, inviting onlookers to enjoy a passing ''hands-on'' moment. Which is when, in close-up, you appreciate the sheer quantity and quality of details and craft in the costumes which are the
focal point.
I am reluctant to give away too many of the pleasures and surprises that are so cunningly bound up in the designs of costume artist Anna Cocciadiferro and Jeanette Sendler. What I can say, however, is both women - though dealing in different concepts and strategies - create costumes where the physical materials carry either metaphysical nuances or else suggest a narrative process. As your eye travels over Sendler's fragile, evocative arrangements of feathers - her theme is one of change and human/bird transmigration - or else dwells on the arcane minutiae and (molars) of Cocciadiferro's Immortal Tooth Underwear, you find yourself ''reading'' each costume like a painting or an art installation. John's movement - and the performers' committed intensity - add a sense of ritual which harks back, teas-ingly, to times and cultures when they had clothes but they also had costumes, significant
garb that spoke of customs and beliefs. Here is a show in which nothing is off the peg. Repeated tonight.
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