What is the Weight of Your Desire

• Donald Hutera
• 9 August 2013

This article is from 2013.

Czech females in fresh feminist mode

VerTeDance’s female quartet, one of a trio of movement-based productions from the Czech Republic at this year’s Fringe, is a fine example of how a fresh, committed approach to familiar material pays off.

Audience members are playfully weighed as they enter. At the top of the show a performer screams while peeling off some (not all) of her clothes. Socks are shoved down pants. A chatterbox blonde is pulled around like a sack of potatoes.

‘Women are objects’ someone intones, but soon another dancer is blowing a raspberry on the sober speaker’s belly. A striptease occurs beneath a tight pink sheath. There is hysterical laughter, a fair amount of artful slipping around to a pop-rock soundtrack and a spate of ravenous mock-erotica.

What makes all this more than just a lot of self-indulgent neo-feminist behaviouralism – and earns the show an extra star – is the cast’s sheer brio. As modern young women, they’re struggling intelligently and entertainingly with who and what they’re meant to be, while as the spiritual granddaughters of Pina Bausch they can get away with being as goofy, witty, tough or brave as they like.

Zoo, 662 6892, until 25 Aug (not 14, 21), 6pm, £8 (£6)