Renegade Dance Theatre, Streetlife

Review in Issue 18-4 | Winter 2006

Finally something that shows the world I live in... the strip lights and street lights and concrete and the ephemerality of NOW! Original in style, this spoke straight to my soul. Energetic and complex, I felt this show captured a truly unseen-before dirty urban atmosphere that got right away from any presumptions of devised physical theatre as whimsical and sentimental and cute. The movement was admirable – ugly, contorted, beautiful. The performers moved in dialogue with the live animation that layered graffiti on the backdrop – have you ever seen a girl dance with a cursor? Each performer had their own unique dance vocabulary. I had thought this might be a kind of hip-hop show-off show, but instead felt that the style said something no other could have. I found it moving, and such a relief to see shopping trolleys and fluorescent strip lights – items not normally imbued with theatrical magic – find their context on stage. I found the atmosphere eerie yet familiar, and beautiful – this will stay with me for a long time.

Presenting Artists
Presenting Festival
Presenting Venue
Date Seen
  1. Aug 2006

This article in the magazine

Issue 18-4
p. 25