Shyly entering from the back of stage, this circus performer is no bespangled diva, seeking to draw oohs and aahs of surprise, fear and admiration from an enthralled crowd. Carrying a diabolo pressed into service as a cake stand, she sneaks around, alternating between making eye contact with the audience and fixating on a pile of cakes.
With two levels of trapeze, diabolo tricks, acrobatics and contortion displays, Flaws and All features circus skills performed with nonchalant gracelessness. Drinking from beer bottles, staggering around stage, applying makeup haphazardly with sensual glee and sharing cake with the audience, Dawn Pascoe rejects the flamboyance of conventional circus artistry in an unrelenting exploration of the flaws of human existence. With an evolving costume, a leotard, hilariously impractical high heels and a bright yellow tutu shifting through various stages of dishabille, Pascoe uses her appearance as well as a low key soundtrack as emphatic rejection of high flying spectacle.
After unpicking a thread from her tutu to amuse herself with the diabolo, Pascoe experiments with diabolo-enhanced cleavage in a humorous critique of perfect bodies. Chewing the discarded thread, Pascoe breaks the usual detached silence of circus acrobats to share a cringingly awkward and intimate tale of how she met her husband, until she chokes on the thread.
Interspersed with flips and spins on the trapezes and deft floor based acrobatics, she maintains a clumsy, directionless character, going so far as to spin upside down with a beer bottle, its contents splashing out across the floor, over her body and through her hair. Eventually succumbing to the lure of the cake, she smashes her face into it with glee, sending crumbs into her mouth, over her face, into her clothes, over the floor and into her increasingly unkempt tangled hair. Later, in a wistful parody of celebration, she piles the cake crumbs together and lights sparklers, before retreating back to the trapeze to spin and twist ever higher, desperate to escape from the woes and temptations of the everyday.
Pascoe is a specialist in wowing audiences with flamboyant outdoor and arena aerial displays. The usual offerings from her company, Natural Wings, are marked by elegant, strong and graceful solo and ensemble spectacular routines. With Flaws and All she moves into more intimate territory, using clowning, tricks and aerial work to support a non-linear, comedic exploration of a self beyond circus clichés of beautiful lady flying through the air.
An antidote to the repetition of fancy tricks and flips with its requisite grinning pose and pause for applause, Flaws and All delivers a unique circus tent performance delivering the anticipated edge of a Fringe production.
Rating 3 ½ stars
Flaws and All
Presented by Natural Wings
Created and performed by Dawn Pascoe
Black Flamingo, Pleasure Gardens, Northbridge
19-25 February 2018
Part of Fringe World 2018
