SEEING THE CITY AND LICKING ITS CROWN
15/02/2016 - 19/02/2016
NZ Fringe Festival 2016 [reviewing supported by WCC]
Production Details
TWINS TO SERVE UP TWICE THE SPICE FOR FRINGE FESTIVAL
Sisters Ania and Kim Upstill to come together and create a sharing platter of food, art and physical performance
Ania Upstill has been trying to entice her sister Kim back to Wellington from California for years, and the 2015 Fringe Festival has proven to be the perfect opportunity. The twins have been pursuing similarly creative careers across the Pacific from one another.
Ania works in theatre, mainly as a director, and was nominated as Most Promising New Director in the 2015 Wellington Theatre Awards (previously the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards). Kim is based in California, where she practices as a fine artist in various media. They haven’t previously been able to work together, but for Fringe 2015 the timing was perfect. Says Ania, “Kim finished an artist’s residency in Berlin in November, and found herself with no pressing obligations back home – so she’s coming here!”
In addition to theatre and art, the third element that draws their show together is food. “Food always brought us together as a family,” says Kim, “Our parents always insisted that we eat dinner all together at a proper table, and it was a daily opportunity to connect. With this project, we want to use food to share with the audience and allow them to participate, becoming a temporary community.”
Audiences will be treated to a tasting menu paired with a physical theatre performance. The content of the show will explore Wellington from the perspective of both sisters – one a resident, one a visitor. They will explore themes of voyeurism, urban dreams, and how cities are linked over distance.
In order to provide a space for their different artistic practices, there will be an exhibition of Kim’s work on display during the day from February 15th – 19th, with the performance and tasting menu taking place at 5:30pm on the Monday, Wednesday and Friday, all at 17 Tory St.
Both twins are looking forward to living – and working – together. “We haven’t lived in the same country since University, and not in the same city since high school,” says Ania. “This project is so exciting because we not only get to spend lots of time together, but we also get to bring our different skill sets together to create something really special”.
17 Tory St, Wellington
Exhibition 9am – 5pm Monday 15th – Friday 19th of February
Performance and tasting menu
Monday 15th, Wednesday 17th and Friday 19th of February
5:30pm
BOOKINGS: RSVP to ania.upstill@gmail.com
TICKETS: Koha
Theatre , Physical ,
Mon, Wed, Fri only
Delight in interactions
Review by Henrietta Bollinger 17th Feb 2016
Entering 17 Tory Street for the second time this Fringe I am struck by how different the space feels to when I was last here. What was a typical end-on makeshift stage has become a restaurant. I am greeted by a smiling Ania Upstill who offers me a bowl of lavender water in which to wash my hands before she shows me to my seat. Myself and the four others at my table are handed menus, which go some way to explaining that we are about to have a multi-sensory and multi-media experience.
The layout features photographs of non-culinary objects: boxes, houses etcetera, accompanied by equally indirect but intriguing text. They remind me more of zines. The aesthetic of the space and objects sets the scene for a performance with a light and poetic touch.
Having worked with Wellington-based Ania previously as a writer and performer, and seen her script based plays – Shakespeare in particular – I am intrigued by her work with her US-based twin Kim Upstill and by what they, as Twincity Productions, might produce. As a twin myself, the potential themes up for exploration – having such an intrinsically close relationship take place long distance – is a delicious prospect.
And it turns out to be a delicious project also. I am delighted by the food presented to us in the same lyrical tone as the performance: petit, symbolic, like the sly glances between performers; the gentle games between the twins and their assistant (Pipipajna Tui), who are all dressed in uniform. For Ania and Kim this accentuates their eerie twinness to effect. The chemistry between performers makes the veiled themes compelling.
The preparation of food becomes an act; a knowing dance. The serving of food equally becomes something searching, inquisitive and playful. The audience is guided gracefully through the experience which all-in-all I would have to label as a celebration more than any explicit tale. There is a sense of delight in the way the performers interact with their audience and each other.
The moment that feels the least finessed is the only moment of verbal storytelling. It lacks any real stakes despite an underlying tension and is too neatly packaged, unlike the rest of the show which feels like pleasantly open-ended questions.
The concept of a tasting menu and a multi-sensory experience is embraced and serves the performers well. I take particular pleasure in the way they move in space together and feel Twincity do themselves a narrative disservice not further mining their own relationship and kinship for tension and arch. This lean performance could go on to have an even richer life given more time.
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