Haus of Yolo
Q Theatre, Rangatira, Auckland
23/11/2022 - 27/11/2022
Production Details
Director: Eve Gordon
Producer: Geoff Gilson
Lighting Design: Filament Eleven 11
Dramaturgy: Lizzie Tollemache
Haus of Yolo is back up and running in Auckland, this time with a brand-new theme of Spring Collection ‘22. The show will be played at Q Theatre on 23-27 November, by The Dust Palace, New Zealand’s most established circus theatre company. Are you ready to enter the visually stunning and exhilarating world of circus performance arts and fashion? Speed sewing and circus combine in a raucous cabaret as fashion designer Welt Couture and The Sexy Love Puppets bring to life The Dust Palace’s HAUS of YOLO Spring Collection ‘22. Enter through the doors and drive deep into the inner sanctum of fashion label “HAUS of YOLO”, as Welt Couture and The Sexy Love Puppets create the bold and sensuous Spring Collection, right before your very eyes!
World renowned designer of houte-cirque, Welt Couture, requires your presence as muse of this joyous, interactive experiment in dangerous acrobatics, costume making and modern middle-class slavery, jam packed with extraordinary skills and flamboyant sewing chaos. The show also provides witty, thought-provoking commentary on the fast-fashion industry, and how models are treated by fashion designers.
“After the pandemic, there is a great openness for in-person engagement with local performing arts, and we’re excited to bring HAUS of YOLO back for Aucklanders over five magical nights. Joining the show means becoming a part of a new wave of fashion, seeing how two industries – circus and fashion – bring a fresh perspective when they merge as one and flourish on stage,” says Eve Gordon, director of the show.
World renowned designer of houte-cirque, Welt Couture, requires your presence as muse of this joyous experiment in circus, costume making and modern middle-class slavery, jam packed with extraordinary skills and sewing chaos.
Will the outfits be finished before the cirque begins? Will they stay in one piece? Will they communicate Welt’s majestic vision? Enter, join the party, and become a part of a new wave of fashion.
“The show is flamboyant, evocative, exquisitely breath-taking and quite simply magical. It is everything you might expect from The Dust Palace, and in other ways it is like nothing you could ever imagine. It has to be seen to be believed. ” — Ilona Hanne, Straford Press
“The imperfection of fast fashion is perfectly highlighted in this fun show that is packed with high energy, thrillingly dangerous acrobatics and a perfectly put together soundtrack.”
Eve has worked as a circus performer, actor, experimental filmmaker, costume-creator, and producer for the last 15 years. As well as training her acts, running The Dust Palace Productions and heading The Dust Palace School, she has also co-directed all 15 of The Dust Palace’s full-length circus works since 2009. Eve’s specialities include circus artist, producer, artistic director, company director, actor, and costume designer.
Cast: Eve Gordon, Geoff Gilson, Jaine Mieka, Jay Clement
Original devising cast: Eve Gordon, Geoff Gilson, Vladimir Lissouba, Ellyce Bisson
Circus , Cirque-aerial-theatre , Dance , Dance-theatre , Physical ,
75 minutes
A Playful Set of Risqué Cabaret Vignettes
In a scattering of seats, the audience slowly fills up tables set up around a naked stage. Mellow toe tapping electronic muzak by Omid 16B fills the theatre. The four performers of Haus of Yolo, Eve Gordon, Geoff Gilson, Jaine Mieka, and Jay Clement start with diction stumbles that belie their seriously marvellous aerial skills. In spite of a microphone minstrel following them closely around the stage, quick switches of hat and coat from performer to performer meant that clever lines are hard to hear, particularly with the odd choice of variable accents.
A bare-bodies sculpture sets the crowd roaring. Materials tossed from a box sets a scene of wonderful disarray. Music, from a cornucopia of tunes – Lady Gaga, The Prodigy, Die Antwoord, Ru Paul, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and many more, is a complement. The loose plot is about an idealist fashionista, Welt Couture played by each performer, who is bound to rapidly sew costumes for the Sexy Love Puppets before each track finishes. The plot is a distraction from high flying silks, chair frame acrobatics, a shaving expose in an onstage bathtub, clubs and golden hoops all swirling in abandoned entertainment modes. If you listen closely, the words of the songs steer the performers around their acts.
There is a lot of fun in this show with audience participation, dress ups, wriggling of hips, slapping of bottoms and very funny versions of lycra costumes. The attuned wild-ishness breaks the performance out of the mould, as the cliches and excesses of embodied partner work become fervidly inventive. Lights, designed by Filament Eleven 11 and the backdrop of instant film showing the sewing and then the performing, enhance a three-dimensional display.
A line in the script that speaks to the whole show, is that “fashion must look effortless”. Haus of Yolo is a playful set of risqué cabaret vignettes fully celebrating the half-naked body in the tiniest leotards I have ever seen. Sometimes cutely provocative moments, and the recovered random stumbles produce a satisfyingly hilarious mix of effort, casual theatrics, artistic licence, moving props and downright skill.
Content warning: coarse language, nudity, and strobe.
HAUS of YOLO is
Dust Palace presented with support from Q Theatre
Director: Eve Gordon
Producer: Geoff Gilson
Lighting Design: Filament Eleven 11
Dramaturgy: Lizzie Tollemache
Cast: Eve Gordon, Geoff Gilson, Jaine Mieka, Jay Clement
Original devising cast: Eve Gordon, Geoff Gilson, Vladimir Lissouba, Ellyce Bisson
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Comments
Ashley Turner November 26th, 2022
Haus of Yolo's narrative may indeed be literally held together by very thin threads for this creationist fashion labels birth but where dialogue fails to advance their scantily clothed stories concept the shows energy of daring aerial prowess to pumped up club bangers and edge of your seat physical theatrics make this Dust Palace runway show a great preamble to a night out dancing.
The company’s tried something new and they are to be commended for their efforts but it still feels more at home between musical acts at a SPLORE festival than a stand alone theatrical performance. But this is circus. So maybe dispense with the clumsily recorded lines and superfluous live video in favour of other devices to sew a story together. Fun night out if not a little $pendy for the sum of its parts.