Adelaide Fringe 2014
Luminous
Art Kinetica
Genre: Physical Theatre
Venue: Gluttony - Le Petite Grande
Festival: Adelaide Fringe
Low Down
‘Luminous’ is classic circus/physical theatre with a twist. Performers flaunt their beautiful UV body paint in the pitch black theatre space whilst moving through a series of visually appealing circus tricks.
Review
Enter the first performer; a scantily clad male with a face like a UV dot painting, holding a crystal ball. Even in the compete darkness you can sense the interest in the audience. An invisible body painter works her magic on the rest of his body, covering his torso and limbs in fluorescent patterns.
The other characters, including a girl dressed like a colourful fluorescent insect and a man painted like a glowing Tetris piece, flit their way around the intimate stage space drawing the audience into the dark and taking them on a trip.
The tricks performed were fairly predictable, and not perfect, but hats off for the innovative ideas behind their presentation. The juggler (in the Tetris getup) is a computer game character at the mercy of a player with a fluoro game console, while glow in the dark diablos used in the traditional way are then turned into pots of UV paint and splashed over the performers’ bodies.
There were moments of perfection, particularly a performance by the female insect with a luminous hula-hoop, however many of the attempted feats lacked a little finesse at times.
Whilst not perfectly executed, the UV art is beautifully mesmerising and the concept fantastic. This little group is not the best technically in their field, but their performance was visually enjoyable and certainly shows promise. It is worthwhile experience.
