At the top of the street theater hit parade, the Australian group Strange Fruit, directed by Roderick Poole, has specialized in performances of great visual impact, entirely staged in the air. Their shows take place four and a half meters above the ground on special flexible poles: true aerial ballets with the grace of ethereal butterflies and the poetry of fairy tales. Suspended between sky and earth, the performers of Strange Fruit leap into the void, brush the ground without ever touching it, unite in the air for a moment, and then return to their solitary oscillations. They possess the art of acrobatics, but also the grace of dance, the stylization and emphasis of mime, and the theater in the characterization of the characters.
Two works will captivate the audience of this edition of Oriente Occidente: The Spheres, created for the Moomba Festival in Melbourne in 2001, and The Field, the company's first work dating back to 1994.
In The Field, eight performers enact an intriguing ritual of courtship and mutual discovery, suspended on extremely tall poles capable of bending to incredible degrees. Men in tuxedos and women in long pastel-colored dresses float in the aerial pleasure of flirtation, touching, embracing, and engaging in a seductive game set to a unique and eclectic soundtrack ranging from Puccini to Bach, Prokofiev to Maurice Chevalier, Michael Nyman to original music composed for the show.
The international fame of Strange Fruit, which has led them to perform at over one hundred and seventy festivals in the past six years, is due to the unique and impeccable style of the productions and performers, the creativity with which they construct their shows, and the harmonious blend of dance, acrobatics, comedy, and sculpture.
