| A Look-back and Guide |
At NoFit State |
| NoFit State Circus , Performance of Wales , July 6, 2024 |
Productions of NoFit State are reviewed below:30 June 2013: “Bianco” “Sequences of high energy alternate with moments of lyricism. Performers swing manically on three arc lights. A juggler sits in a white chair, and his eight balls seem to simply dance around him. Five women ascend in cages swirling with strands of silver beads. As for her ending Firenza Guidi creates an image of such spectral beauty and delight, that no reviewer should reveal it.” * * * * 26 March 2011: “Mundo Paralelo” “The clowning in this form is not the frenetic pratfalls of brightly painted figures but the deadpan, slightly melancholic comedy that reached a wider pubic with Jaques Tati. “It's this style that Nofit State in combination with the European Théâtre Tattoo and National Theatre Wales brought to the Torch. It was a show of quiet wit and gentle charms, performed to a music score that sounded like updated Eric Satie. Within the confines of a theatre it's the smaller, quiet moments that work best in the show. Frida Odden Brinkman's elegant juggling while being turned upside down achieved an almost balletic beauty.” * * * * 13 March 2011: “Mundo Paralelo” “Mundo Paralelo – a collaboration with National Theatre Wales – is dramatic right from the start as performers, wearing luminous headgear, dangle from the beams of the dimly-lit Torch Theatre in Milford Haven. “Directed by Mladen Materic from Serbia, the show features circus performers from all over the world who are masters at their game. “During the first act we’re treated to some incredible stunts – from Norwegian juggler Frida Odden Brinkmann’s tricks with up to eight balls to American clown George Fuller’s high-wire walk. There’s also a clever scene involving trap doors, juggling balls and a bemused performer.” * * * * 03 April 2009: “Tabu” “This is fabulous stuff that owes more to contemporary dance and experimental theatre than it does to sawdust and elephants. Its bleeding, diffuse quality is part of its appeal; look up and around and you will find that several things are happening at the same time. Even the rigging becomes a show in its own right, and the sudden appearance of prams and penny farthings suggest a topsy-turvy Alice in Wonderland world. There is a great band, who have an easy, Tom Waits gruffness and pile on the atmosphere.” * * * * 02 April 2009, 01 April 2009, 08 May 2008: “Tabu” “What you get is an intoxicating mix of eclectic music (from funk to klezmer by way of jazz and rock), eccentric solos, pratfall clowning, trapeze work and high-wire thrills that often isn’t that different from any other circus, but here is so close you can smell the sweat. This year’s follow-up to the hugely successful ImMortal series is in some ways less ambitious. There’s less technology, less quirkiness and no outer circle to walk round, although the audience is still there in the thick of it.” * * * * 07 May 2008: “Tabu” “Although the opening-night performance felt more episodic than organic, the ensemble's skills were well deployed. Not to negate the men's contributions, but this show - revolving round themes of fear and desire - is inhabited by a bevy of strong females. I loved Adie Delany's giddy grin as she swung full-throttle on the trapeze, Vanina Fandiño squatting on a tightrope to roll a cigarette, the mesmerising drama of her sister Natalia's earthy writhings on the static trapeze and Shaena Brandell's entrancingly erotic hoop routine. The crude but endearingly child-like antics of Marcella Manzilli also merit mention. Peter Swaffer's cabaret-rock score, played live by a five-piece band and featuring some forgivably cod-poetic lyrics, spurs all the characters on to unbridled heights.” * * * * 13 September 2007: “ImMortal” “There is some balletic aerial hoop work, a rope mesh full of menacing, cavorting ‘spiders’. An extraordinary strong man who not only balances his whole body on one hand but describes a circle as he does so. Amazing things happen with hoola hoops, the swirling black drapes become white, a bride hangs high in the air with her train scraping the floor. The lady on the aerial hoop looks wistful, and longing, the ‘black’ men and women circle fire around their bodies as the serious fun comes to a fulfilling and entertaining end.” * * * * 20 August 2005, 16 August 2005: “Immortal 2” “No Fit State Circus's show is an eccentric astonishment, an artfully controlled chaos, a miraculous use of space, a gaudy painted butterfly that takes flight and dies. This is not a show for the very young and, to be honest, you'll probably see more skilful, death-defying feats in other circuses. “But skill is not the point here. It is the presentation that so thrills as the company create a crazily chaotic world that is like every memory ever stored in your head all recalled at the same time. “There are times when it risks becoming too busy: a jumble of film, music, time, words, tumbling limbs, fire, tickling and giggling, light and dark, beach balls batted among the crowd. But just when it threatens to overwhelm it offers stillness: two lovers on a rope holding on for dear life; a proffered red apple; the whole company walking slowly into the dazzling light of oblivion. There are images to turn your bones to both silk and dust. “This is Cirque du Soleil without the Disney and the disinfectant. It is the narrative-driven, total theatre experience that British circus has been striving for so long to achieve. Welcome to the slaughterhouse. Welcome to the future.” * * * * 06 May 2005: “Immortal 2” “Take one of Wales’s most innovative long-established physical performance groups and put it together with one of Wales’s most exciting directors and what do you get ? Put another way, take new circus and get an Italian intellectual to write and direct it and what results ? Either way, it’s ImMortal2, a show like you’ve never seen before. “ State Circus have been around for a dozen years or so, when the likes of Ra Ra Zoo, Cirque du Soleil and Archaos were redefining what circus was, using familiar techniques to create a spectacular new kind of theatre; Firenza Guidi has been making theatre in Wales since 1989, lecturing and writing and running Cardiff-based Elan Wales, a remarkable performance outfit that knows no national boundaries. “Linking circus skills with a very cerebral kind of theatre is not quite the most likely creative marriage – but both NoFit State and Ms Guidi have specialised in the unpredictable. “ * * * * 29 April 2005 “Immortal 2” “Seas of white cloths swirl around us, they are climbed and the artists perform a moving ballet of energetic horizontal movement. A man in an ancient barber’s chair changes his shoes and eats an apple, at one point he’s upside down on the back of the chair. Another miniature balletic moment is dazzlingly performed in a large suspended wheel. A man juggles with bowler hats. Another with the conventional juggling balls but this is no conventional juggling. There is nothing conventional about Nofit State circus, its appeal is as much to lovers of serious drama as it is to lovers of superb and energetic acrobatics.” * * * * 01 September 2004, 25 August 2004, 24 August 2004, 08 August 2004, 06 August 2004, 03 August 2004: “ImMortal” * * * * 14 July 2004: “ImMortal” “Ditching traditional circus trappings of animals and clowns, this intoxicating, tumultuous production for all ages by the Cardiff-based NoFit State Circus climbs towards headier theatrical realms. Decked out in retro-style clothing, a teeming cast of twenty portrays a motley society. Characters include a schoolgirl and sailor, a semi-transvestite and an inebriate, a bride and a would-be suicide. Although there is no real narrative, these fictional beings seem to always be careening in and out of fleeting yet intense public encounters.” * * * * 30 June 2004: “ImMortal” “Excellent sound and lighting enhances the strong impact of the superb performance skills, while costume designer Sian Jenkins’ delightful array of retro costumes brings gasps, with two powerful images of brides in black and white spiralling down from above.” * * * * 8 June 2004: “ImMortal” “Emotion. Energy. And movement — lasting impressions from visual artist Firenza Guidi’s recent work, Immortal, which I viewed on the opening night of the show, May 12 at the Ynysangharad Park in Pontypridd, Wales. In this piece that Firenza created for the NoFitState Circus, she combines varied elements and different media that make for a richer viewing experience. At the heart of the piece is a gripping performance by trapeze artists who explore the space of a circus and through that a beyond…to the depths of experience, sensation and feeling. Immortal traverses vast moments of being. And in doing this it very subtly leads the viewer more towards the intangible.” * * * * 25 May 2004: “ImMortal” “Director Firenza Guidi has created a world that is half Aladdin’s cave half purgatory where we are invited to explore the shadows, enter the light and bear witness to a cavalcade of acrobatic dramas, both intimate and extravagant, and a panoply of characters who manage to be both seductive and intimidating. This rogues’ gallery lurk and linger in caves and corners like lascivious lovers or hang suspended, grinning down at us like demonic angels. “Why they are there, at first, remains tantalisingly unclear but from the moment a globe of light is tossed from hand to hand and grabbed at like some elusive secret, we know they are there for us and we are there for them. We are not so silent witnesses in an exuberant parade of humanity. Like the circus itself, these protagonists are transient and ephemeral, waiting for their moment, their time to make their mark.” * * * * 23 October 2003: “Splott on the Landscape” “My 4-year old daughter and I were completely spellbound and astounded at the accomplishment of many of the - now professional - youngsters in the show. To mention but a few, the aerial`dancers on vertical ropes were stunningly innovative, Bongo Boleros `acro-balancing` act (holding each other in impossible positions) was very classy indeed, and very funny. A courageous and skilled serious solo `dance-voice` piece with juggling clubs worked very well. “But it was the current band of merry `Splott-Stater's` - including children - who really stole the show with their `Ballet de Mono-Cyclettes' (swan lake in stripy tights with unicycles). The deadpan delivery of daringly choreographed unicycle riding, falling, lifting, and bouncing - was the funniest thing I have seen, EVER.” |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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