FRINGE '04: Birthday - the clinic

On tiptoe through the winter,
our mouths were full of summer memories,
wearing inedible tinsel tutus
for the love of spring
and the double chocolate cake
which made the adults laugh with a shame
the children don't understand,

lingering in doorways halfway to bedtime
in pyjamas they don't want to wear.
In their autumn years
they will begin to measure in beats and breaths
and stray their hands for twinkle twinkle.

Too late for dancing,
too early for dead trees
we pull a long story out of our feet
and tiptoe tiptoe little star,
remembering tutus too small for winter sheep.

Proposed performance dates: Fri 12th 9pm, Sat 13th 8pm & 10pm, Sun 14th 8pm & 10pm, Mon 15th 9pm

Venue: WACT Studio

Tickets: The tickets will be $12 / $9 / $8

Birthday:

“Birthday” is a collaboration between the clinic, sound artist Thomas Phillpotts and aerialiste Pipi-Ayesha Evans. Here, we are preoccupied with the process of remembering, of looking back along the long tail of the past and the strange colourful flowers we see there, through the lens of our idealisation and our pain.

These huge distortions come to life in a very theatrical manner: massive shadows are thrown along the white walls of the gallery; words, sounds and moments are squeezed and lengthened; and events like a favourite remembered birthday seem to last a whoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooole year.

The title “Birthday” reflects a new interest in births, deaths, and the measuring of life. We hope to explore the process of aging, the feeling of time speeding up and slowing down throughout life, from the first tentative steps we take as a tiny child to the loss of ability to walk in old age.

Directed by Lucette Hindin, the style of “Birthday” will hark back to the early work of the clinic (for example, “Synapse: Digging for Apples,” our first work, which premiered at the Wellington Fringe in 2000) – colourful, character-driven, a touch anarchic or grotesque, influenced by dancetheatre and art-house film.

the clinic

the clinic was established in 1999 by Lucette Hindin, Anastsia Dailianis and Haydn Kerr. Since then, the clinic has grown to a core group of five with a large network of affiliated actors and artists.

Over the past 3 years we have been creating original performances, touring and running workshops in Christchurch, Wellington, Dunedin and Leipzig, Germany. Our first work, Synapse: Digging for Apples won a Best for Theatre at the Wellington Fringe Festival in 2000, and the following year we won a Best Multimedia with The Forbidden Room. In 2001 we were also awarded the STAB commission (awarded by Bats theatre in Wellington for innovative work with performance and technology), and created Wild Night American Dream, which was nominated for a Chapman Tripp award.

the clinic is also currently working on the development for touring of a devised, multimedia work, The Peculiar Case of Clara Parsons, which premiered at the Christchurch Arts Festival in July 2003.

ENDS

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