Salon de Danse
Premiering in 2009 to become a tearaway bijoux success, Salon de Dance is a seedy, magnificent, intimate dark dance hall, drenched in acid green and gothic noir decor; table seating, lightbulb swinging, liquor sipping, dance lessons during interval. With an ever changing line-up of extraordinary dancers and physical artistes, Salon de Dance is packed to the rafters with provocative, sensual, macabre, generous, and unexpected dance works. The Salon de Dance is wildly contemporary played out in speakeasy chaos.
The Salon centrepieces the internationally acclaimed 'Banquet Room’ declared by Japanese critics as: “The most shocking dance I’ve ever seen in my life… how incredible is this banquet that the two create with their strange movement. I found myself laughing without any sound.” Nagignon Dance, OSAKA.
Featuring an ever changing line up of extraordinary dancers and physical artists; the Salon is variously populated by the arresting talents of Mistress of Grand Guignol Moira FINUCANE, elegant iconoclast Maude DAVEY, the goddess of dark butoh dementia Yumi UMIUMARE, luminous Sydney dancer Paul CORDEIRO, debonair electro-shock dancer Rob MCCREDIE, London satirist writer physical performer and Olivier Award winning artist Christopher GREEN, international darling of contemporary-dance-with-a-twist Brian LUCAS, circus artiste and Guinness record holding hula hooper JESS LOVE, and dynamic dance duo KITTEN KO Harriet RICTHIE and Holly DURANT.
Beautiful, provocative and entirely seductive, The Salon de Dance bursts at the seams with the unique and the intriguing.
CREATORS
Creators: Moira Finucane & Jackie Smith
Artistes & Choregraphers: various including Maude Davey, Yumi Umiumare, Brain Lucas, Paul Cordeiro, Harriet Ritchie, Holly Durant, Moira Finucane, Caroline Lee, Christopher Green, Rob McCredie
Set Designer: Esther Hayes
Lighting Designer: Kerry Ireland & Brownyn Pringle
PERFORMANCE HISTORY
Nov 2010: Adelaide Feast Festival Salon de Dance premiered and has been further developed with by La Mama Theatre, City of Melbourne, Australia Council for the Arts Dance Board & MAP
Mar 2010: DÈLUGE La Mama Theatre, Carlton, Melbourne
Mar 2009: premiere season La Mama Theatre, Carlton, Melbourne
Reviews
“Infections that provoke as much as they entertain. The footloose and freakish Salon de Dance, Umiumare and Finucane’s The Banquet Room a slice of grotesque physical theatre that features a demented pas de deux between a b this is a transgressive, titillating tango across the floor of circus, burlesque, slapstick and physical theatre”.
THE AGE, MELBOURNE
“Salon de Dance, created by Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith, is not merely a show; it is a place, an experience, a salon in the French style filled with the flavour of cabaret, burlesque, and all sorts of dance and music. It is a sweet bag of mixed lollies to tantalise the tastebuds.”
HERLAD SUN, MELBOURNE
“I’ve written a lot this week about authenticity, originality, and other words we bandy around in regard to art. All are difficult to define, but obvious when we see them. The cabaret/burlesque/butoh/gothic/ bloody-terrific creations of Moira Finucane and Jackie Smith continue to be both – light blubs, highlighted with sips of bright green absinthe (that may have been creme de menthe) and carefree toasts to La Danse. If you bring some coins, you can even buy your own dance during the most perfect of intervals. From the bizarre to the gorgeous… this is dance that breaks the rules and lets us see what lurks in the hearts and thoughts of the dancers. Exaggerated, extreme, unexpected and macabre; it’s everything that dance isn’t meant to be – and all the more wonderful for it.”
Aus. Theatre
“The most shocking dance I’ve ever seen in my life…The Queen of Cabaret Bizarre, Moira Finucane is extremely tall and skinny as if she is a witch, and The Queen of Butoh Cabaret, Yumi Umiumare is small and eccentric… How incredible funny is this banquet that the two creates with their strange movement. Just incredible!! I rolled my self laughing without making any sound…the last scene is a shock.
Nagignon Dance on Banquet Room, JAPAN
“A white dressed woman is sitting lifelessly at the corner of the three walled small room. At the back of the wall there is a little window where a black dressed woman is attached… they both rolls their white eyes, make an uncanny laugh and eventually fall apart… What powerful and scary forms their release turns into!! After they take off their dresses, two bodies wearing same white evening dress, were connected each others as if they are two headed beasts. They made each other drink wine, and stabbed a chicken with knife in side of the pot and screamed ” gyaaaaaaaaa!” It was incredible thrilling work in which audience’s internal scream was also released through the laughter.”
LOG Osaka Magazine on Banquet Room, JAPAN
“Powerfully scary and it was the most impressive show on the day .…Yumi Umiumare in classical white dress, and Moira Finucane in black dress. They are both bizarre, funky and extremely strange and fun. Their face with rolling eye, ghost–cat like expressions and laughter are very interesting…. The smells of wine, powder, and all sorts of kinds made me overwhelming. They are too powerful for me …but I want to see them again!”
Dancecube Chaccott Magazine on Banquet Room KANSAI
“..The Banquet Room, named also under Butoh cabaret, it was slightly disgusting but filled with intended forms. Moira Finucane and Yumi Umiumare…were creating interesting bizarre atmosphere.”
Nobuo Kogure, Ass. Professor, Tachibana University KYOTO
“Repressed women let loose in a Gothic fantasy of heightened physical states…over-the-top exaggeration, repetition and a great sense of fun”
THE AGE, MELBOURNE