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Bristol Old Vic Studio (to Sun 9 Jan) THEATRE/DANCE Take two agile, inventive and hugely skilled b-boy dancers, put them together with a company who’ve been making beautiful children’s theatre for 25 years, and what do you get? One of the most charming, heart-warming and visually breathtaking shows of the year, that’s what. Wilkie Branson and Joel Daniel, a.k.a. Bristol’s superb Champloo Dance Company, play two excitable brothers waiting impatiently for Santa’s arrival on Christmas Eve, in this beautiful slice of dance, visual theatre and comic invention directed by Sally Cookson for Travelling Light. Armed with a pair of pillows, two teddies, feathers, LED lights and a big bed, the duo create a hypnotic visual world, a little small-hours kingdom whose pace varies from frantic high jinks to quiet contemplation. They also conjure up, exactly, some precious emotions: the giddy childhood excitement of the night before Christmas; the love and solidarity in play (and occasional rivalry) of young brothers; and, above all, the joys of invention and imagination. Their games, acrobatics and visual jokes had a large audience of toddlers gazing on rapt, and gave their chaperones plenty to enjoy too. You know something’s working when you’re burbling with laughter at exactly the same moment as the three-year-old sat next to you. Poetic, moving, witty and wonderful. (Steve Wright)
Copyright Steve Wright 2010; pic copyright Farrows Creative 2010 |
Reviews
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29.03.2012
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23.03.2012
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21.03.2012
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17.02.2012
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28.01.2012
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26.01.2012
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17.11.2011
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