fringe: fauna

adelaide fringe: fauna
People pretending to be animals... animals pretending to be people... Fauna lies somewhere in the space between.

This is circus that is inspired by nature, the fauna of the title, and isn't necessarily always pretty... but it is wonderfully controlled and powerful.

A couple of years ago we were lucky enough to see Cadence, and three of the performers from that, Rhiannon Cave-Walker, Daniel Cave-Walker (formerly Daniel Liddiard) and musician Geordie Little, have returned with Fauna. Along side them are Enni-maria Lymi, Matt Pasquet and Imogen Huzel.

Little provides the live music to go along with the performance, and starts the show off with his guitar, which is quite beautiful.

It's kind of hard to describe the show to be honest... there's no specific story, but there are character traits and specific animal behaviours. Lymi seems to be the awkward predator, somewhat feared but easily surprised. The Cave-Walkers are clearly a mated pair. Huzel is some kind of a bird and poor Pasquet is clearly below everyone in the pecking order.

My favourite sequences were easily anything involving Lymi... she's mainly a trapeze artist, but it's not pretty posing trapeze (which I dislike), it's strong, powerful trapeze, that she makes funny while at the same time showing an incredibly level of both strength and control.

It was also impressive to see her act as the base for a trick involving all three women.

And following up close behind as a favourite was the sequence with Messrs Cave-Walker and Pasquet squaring off as rival males. I'm not going to lie, I know they were supposed to be fighting, but it was a little bit sexy.

But it's really not like there was a bad sequence throughout.

I also had a soft spot for the collective walk they do at the beginning and end of the show... it's not big, it's not flashy, but it is wonderfully coordinated and beautiful to watch.

That's kind of the point of Fauna I think... it's not big, over the top, dramatic tricks for the most part, but everything that they do, they do with an immense amount of power, strength and control which is even better as far as I'm concerned.

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