Up close and very personal
THEATRE
Proximity Festival
Curated by Kelli Mccluskey and Sarah Rowbottam
3.5 STARS
Fremantle Arts Centre
REVIEW DAVID ZAMPATTI
It's the third year of Proximity, the interactive one-on-one site-specific micro-festival of performance-intensive care. The curators, Sarah Rowbottam and Kelli Mccluskey (taking over from James Berlyn, who is an advisor to, and performer in, the festival) are really getting the hang of the thing, the only one of its kind in the country.
It's also likely that Proximity's audience - the 324 performances over nine days are sold out - knows better what to expect and how to handle its mechanics. What's indisputable is that Proximity has found its venue; the Fremantle Arts Centre's maze of rooms, courtyards, corridors and stairs has a patina built over 150 years of use, and the echoes of its sometimes tragic history whisper in your mind's ear as you move through it.
So, on with the shows: I took my own advice from last year and didn't attempt all three four-performance programs on offer (apologies to Berlyn, Alina Tang, Jen Jamieson and Tanya Lee).
What I did experience ranged from instructing learner driver Ian Sinclair on the intricacies of his car's windshield wipers to imbibing the air of different eras in history - including, disconcertingly and hilariously, that of an atmospherically debased future - courtesy of Emily Parsons-Lord.
I suffered the indignity of being deported from Australia after failing some pointed Dinkum-Aussie tests from Toyi-Toyi Theatre's stern Tarryn Runkel, and searched for, or perhaps became, a missing person with the alluring Hallie Shellam. I danced with wolves in Sylvia Rimat's cinematic room of sound and light, and attempted to twerk with the terribly kind Caroline Garcia (people who saw me going into that room couldn't contain their cackles at the prospect). I combined confectionary and gynaecology with Cat Jones - and even got to take some lollies home with me.
Most striking, and compelling, of all, I was taken back down the evolutionary tree by Loren Kronemyer as I struggled, wordless, bound, bent and maladroit, to escape the trap she had set for me.
Proximity was great fun, neatly constructed and, in varying degrees, insightful. It had a twist in most of its tales and a point well made in many of them. Get in early next year.
The Proximity Festival is at Fremantle Arts Centre until November 2.
