CORIANDER
BATS Theatre, The Heyday Dome, 1 Kent Tce, Wellington
24/08/2016 - 27/08/2016
Dunedin Fringe Festival Club, 20 Princes St, Dunedin
17/03/2017 - 18/03/2017
Production Details
It’s yoga with spice. It’s yoga with flavor. It’s yoga with Coriander! (But you can call her Randi for short!)
After the success of performing as Coriander at The World Buskers Festival (Christchurch), Le Tigre Tent (Christchurch), CubaDupa (Wellington) and most recently along Venice Beach (Los Angeles), Jess Brien brings you Coriander’s Yoga(ish) Show this August to BATS Theatre.
Coriander’s Yoga(ish) Show is an hour long clown, comedy and yoga fusion written and performed by NASDA (National Academy of Singing and Dramatic Art) and Francine Cote’s Clown and Comedy School (Montreal, Canada) graduate and 200HR Yoga Instructor Jess Brien and is directed by the talented Imogen Prossor.
Coriander’s Yoga(ish) Show has been described as a spiritual journey like no other and guarantees to bring a sense of play to the audience as Coriander guides, demonstrates and brings to life the practice of yoga in a uniquely hilarious way.
After this season at BATS Theatre in Wellington, the production is touring to the Sydney Fringe Festival in September.
Up and comer Jess Brien is quickly proving there is little she can’t do. Audiences are invited to join in on the madness that is Coriander’s Yoga(ish) Show, a fun and highly engaging solo theatre show set to bring out the inner child in all of us. No yoga experience necessary… In fact the less you know about yoga the better!
“Everyone needs to know who you are, ‘cause you’re f****n’ funny, dude!” – A Trump Protestor at Venice Beach, LA
“I was literally having to massage my cheeks because they hurt from smiling too much.” – Andrea Broad, 4InspiredMovement Studio, Petone
Coriander’s Yoga(ish) Show
The Heyday Dome, BATS Theatre, 1 Kent Tce
24-27 August 2016
7pm (60 minutes)
Adult: $18 Concession: $14 Groups of 6+: $13
Tickets are available at bats.co.nz or (04) 802 4175
2017
After performing the only yoga comedy show to tour both New Zealand and Australia; clown, performer and real-life yoga instructor Jess Brien brings her solo show Coriander to Dunedin for the upcoming Dunedin Fringe Festival. After the success of performing as Coriander at The World Buskers Festival (Christchurch), BATS Theatre (Wellington), along Venice Beach (Los Angeles), The Sydney Fringe Festival and the inaugural Fringe In The ‘Stings Festival (Hastings), Auckland based clown and yoga instructor Jess Brien brings her one-woman show to The Dunedin Fringe Festival.
Theatreview has called it, “A feel good fun–‐fest” and The Dominion Post “highly innovative and original.” One audience member even said, “I nearly peed my pants!” One of New Zealand’s talented emerging artists, Jess Brien is quickly proving there is little she can’t do. Audiences are invited to join in on the madness that is Coriander, a fun and highly engaging solo theatre show set to bring out the inner child in all of us. No yoga experience necessary… In fact the less you know about yoga the better!
CORINDER
The Emerson’s Festival Club, 20 Princes St, Dunedin.
17th & 18th March at 6pm (60minutes)
Reserve your seat for $3 & koha on the night. Tickets are available at www.dunedinfringe.nz
facebook.com/jessssbrien
Tech operator (BATS): Maria Williams
Theatre , Solo , Clown ,
1 hr
Quirky, original, good clean fun
Review by Emer Lyons 18th Mar 2017
Coriander – “Randi for short” – is a glittering, jangling, ball of charm. She makes her entrance in classic nineties throwback style to ‘Spice Up Your Life’ by the Spice Girls, immediately getting the audience clapping and dancing in their seats. Played by Jess Brien, Coriander bounces around the stage decked out in a sequined outfit that exposes some comically positioned see-through areas as she dives into the ‘downward dog’ yoga posture.
She opens up to the audience by asking herself personal questions revealing her naïvely oblivious nature. She teaches us with the aid of her love of scrapbooking all about, ‘Coriander’s History of Yoga-ish, by Coriander’ – “That’s me!” – when the audience participation gets competitive and talks to her sub-conscious about how inspirational quotes from google can really help a situation.
The show is unselfconscious with our host innocently portraying herself and in turn encouraging even the most unwilling members of the audience into shameless participation and self-expression.
Coriander offers welcome time out to meditate on the fun elements of life along with a great soundtrack of party tunes from Florence and the Machine to Nelly. It’s quirky, original and good clean fun that’ll definitely get you in the mood for the weekend.
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Coriander strikes a yoga pose and wins the Bats audience
Review by Ewen Coleman 26th Aug 2016
For decades now, people have been involved in the practice and art of yoga and, over the years, many different types and forms of yoga have spawned up, including Hot Yoga and Laughing Yoga. But it is highly unlikely that there have been many Spicy Yoga classes around.
But that is exactly what Jessica Brien is running in her very funny and original one-woman show, Coriander’s Yoga(ish) Show, currently playing at Bats. [More]
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A feel-good funfest
Review by John Smythe 24th Aug 2016
The main thing to say about Coriander’s Yoga(ish) Show is it’s a feel-good funfest. To say much more could be a spoiler because it’s all in how Jess Brien’s clown persona – (“Coriander: call me Randi”) goes about it.
With directorial support from Imogen Prossor, her broad Kiwi character is engaging from the get-go. She includes her audience without undue pressure and is good enough at yoga not to look for laughs by doing it badly. It’s her bling, innocently suggestive chit-chat, selectivity with the history and science of it all, and some rather odd behaviour that generate the comedy.
Light & sound operator Maria Williams is on the button with enhancing cues and copes well with the apparently unexpected.
Those who participate on the mats are given ‘spice’ (or herb) names and much fun ensues involving, to be oblique, cats and cows. Then comes the challenge round – and just when we think we have Randi pegged, a whole new dimension emerges. Personally I’d like to see this flipside explored more before equilibrium is regained – thanks to a spiritual intervention.
As I said: a feel-good funfest. Good to go to with friends.
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