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.
The Spheres, the group's latest show, tackles the theme of creation and life through the company's characteristic fantastic, poetic, and human perspective: from the miracle of birth to the discovery of the laws of physics, The Spheres reveals the relationship between humanity and planet Earth.
The giant spheres, metaphorical of molecular form, the principle of life, and the embryo, are perched in the sky like luminous stars. Suddenly, they begin to hum more and more evidently and chaotically. Human beings appear, still in a fetal state, wrinkled and defenseless. Then, suddenly, the tone changes: these human beings, now grown, discuss, court, and mate. But social desire soon gives way to the urge for solitude, the need to build their own world; like stylites, isolated in asceticism, they climb above their globe, before discovering the thrill of freedom and escaping.
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.
