The big Fringe review 2011

So I was away and managed to do some Fringe stuff during the weekend.

First we went to see “Korean Drums”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMZSSp1Au0U

Actually a really interesting experience, I didn’t realize that they had so many drums in Korea. It was a little bit too long for a drum spectacle, there aren’t that many variations that you can do with a drum, but it was smartly organized. They had traditional dances, a comic interview and even, halfway through, a flute, I wanted my money back at that moment, I signed for Korean Drums, not Korean Drums and a single Korean flute.

I’m kidding.

Anyway they are the real deal, a bunch of very talented and incredibly trained Korean drummers.

Then we went to see “Pinocchio: a fantasy of pleasures”.

http://vimeo.com/25320052

First I must say that this is not a show for children, easily offended people or simply very prude this show is not for you, go somewhere else and have fun, the world is a big place…

Now that the slate is clear, what an incredible show! I’m not a dance expert so maybe what they’ve been doing is relatively easy but I honestly found everything astonishing. The dance routines were amazing; they looked incredibly complex but at the same time were mesmerizing to watch. The dancers were clearly professionals.

There was also a singer who amazed us with very complicated and unusual songs, in many different languages at the same time!

This is a very peculiar reinterpretation of Pinocchio, mainly centered on the first part of the original story. The relationship between Pinocchio and the fairy becomes a very erotic love story and the Pleasure Island becomes literally a brothel. In the end they actually illuminated the original story from a different angle therefore making the show interesting also from an intellectual point of view.

All the leads were incredibly prepared and talented, and also very, very, good looking I must add. A must see show.

After that we went to see “Silent”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqFd54R6dOQ&feature=related

This was kinda a shame because I suspect that I saw another very good show but alas the language was too Irish for my ears, i could follow but it was so hard that I couldn’t participate in the flow of emotions and in the end a spitting headache stopped me from understanding anything. What I can say is that it was surely a very interesting experiment and also a very touching, and extremely sad, story.

On the last day we saw “Free run”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-9mB8Rg6o8

What a delusion! They were certainly talented and trained but really, the show had a lot of terrible moments.

It was far too long, of course they couldn’t jump all the time so they put the longest breaks ever where some crappy techno music played and they moved very slooowly around. They also tried to put a risible story in the middle of the show with the evil force of government chasing around our heroes in a badly choreographed scene. Choreography was the big absentee here; we practically just had a bunch of spots badly connected.

They still didn’t have enough free run to fill the show so they called a Capoeira and a Karate expert to do a pretend fight in the middle of the stage. Nothing against Capoeira, I actually like it, but the poor chap did the same routine over and over again, how boring.

The ending was kinda nice with all the free runners coming back and doing their spots one at a time, this time we could finally appreciate them, but really as an hour show it was very bad.