Air Play
Regent Theatre, The Octagon, Dunedin
28/09/2018 - 29/09/2018
Production Details
created by Seth Bloom and Christina Gelsone
Air Play is a dazzling phenomenon that brings to life the very air we breathe. Flying umbrellas, larger-than-life balloons, giant kites floating over the audience, and the biggest snow globe you’ve ever seen, make this spectacular performance an event that is as playful as it is heart-warming.
Air Play is a circus-style adventure about two siblings journeying through a surreal land of air, transforming the ordinary into objects of uncommon beauty. Fabrics dance in the wind, balloons have a mind of their own, confetti turns into the night sky, and an enormous canopy of hovering silk defies gravity.
The creation of husband and wife team Seth Bloom and Christina Gelsone, Air Play merges circus and street theatre performance with sculptural artistry. With visual images seemingly sewn from the sky, this poetic ode to childhood will enchant and electrify the young and young at heart in an evening of pure joy, magic and beauty.
Air Play is a great way to start the school holidays.
“AIR PLAY holds the whole audience in the palm of its outstretched hand. A winning combination of visually stunning sculptures and cheeky but heartfelt storytelling that keeps both adults and children enthralled” British Theatre Guide
Friday 28 & Saturday 29 Sept, 7.30pm
Regent Theatre
Circle & Stalls
A Res / Con / Child $55/$45/$35
B Res / Con / Child $45/$40/$30
C Res / Con / Child $35/$30/$25
Seth Bloom and Christina Gelsone
Dance-theatre , Cirque-aerial-theatre , Circus , Dance , Children’s , Family ,
60 minutes
Delicacy and perfection
Review by Hannah Molloy 30th Sep 2018
Having an audience engaged and right there with you within seconds of opening a show is a feat that must be acknowledged right up front. Christina Gelsone and Seth Bloom do this with Air Play and are utterly charming and delightful from that moment until they take their bows. There’s no hard work involved for the audience at any stage. Children laugh and marvel out loud. Adults do as well.
The arc of the show undulates between gentle but exquisitely beautiful and fragile moments and frantic clowning, all based around the movement of air across various items, mostly balloons of various sizes and vast sheets of fabric. There isn’t really a ‘story’ per se, other than the shifting relationship between Gelsone and Bloom as they compete and trick each other. A story isn’t necessary. The choreography of silk and air, glitter and latex is enough.
I could watch the rippling liquidity of those sheets for hours. The simplest twitch sends waves through the fabric – each colour (red, yellow and white each take turns) shivers through the spectrum held inside its own wavelength. The delicacy of the control and the mesmerisation on the performers’ own faces hold the audience captive, controlled as cleverly as the tools of their trade.
Shows like this are easy to review simply because they bring streams of words and images to my mind; phrases like dreams drifting across the stage, like milk, like smoke, like blood, or oil on a puddle, a spray of cherry blossom, a bridal veil swept back in the passion of a first kiss, a twist of ocean froth, a vortex of snowballs, a twinkling of tiny starbursts … Deflation and elation, tempestuousness and care, balance and surprise…
So many other words, and perhaps they don’t describe the performance in a way that a reviewer should. The delicacy and perfection of Air Play doesn’t lend itself to traditional summaries though so I’m happy with my snatches of imagery.
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