The Core at Corby Cube
October 1, 2016
David Mead
“For 3-7 years and their grown-ups,” as the publicity puts it, sums up Wriggle Dance Theatre’s The Colour of Me rather neatly. Yes, it is really aimed at the youngsters, and with more than a little help from Sue Pyecroft’s designs, Barret Hodgson’s digital projections and Anthony Kimber-McTiffen’s great live music, dancers Kath Kimber-McTiffen, Ruth Jacombs and Chris Bradley had them completely engaged from the start.
Allowing the audience to sit where they want on mats on three sides of the space helps create an easy-going welcoming atmosphere. At times the children were so captivated you could have heard a pin drop. But the message writ large through the show is that dance is fun. At times the youngsters laughed and laughed, but whisper it quietly, so did the adults.
Photo Photo Keiko Ikeuchi
The Colour of Me (directed by Lucy Knight) shifts easily between theatre and dance. It’s an enchanting exploration of the emotions that live in us through the colours that are around us, with all eventually brought together to create a rainbow, the whole person within us all.
All the movement and characterisation is related to colours. Green is peaceful, the mood set by some projections suggesting sun glinting through a forest canopy, and a digital butterfly that is gently captured and released. Blue takes us to the sea, created with a giant fabric held by the children, who enthusiastically created waves. Holes in the fabric allowed the dancers to pop up in different places. A dance that has the dancers standing on their shoulders, legs sticking out of the ‘water’ went down particularly well; and so it should, because it is rather good.
Each mood contrasts with that before and after. Red is grumpy and cross. “What are you looking at?” the audience is asked. Purple is heralded by a story about walking around the playground alone. “It’s horrible being lonely,” we are told. Yellow is happy.
Photo Keiko Ikeuchi
Interaction is key in Wriggle’s work and there’s plenty of it in The Colour of Me. That digitally created green butterfly flitters around, a bee buzzes around the children’s heads, purple feathers are blown towards them, which of course they the blow themselves, and they are encouraged into the space to climb over the strands of a giant orange. Perhaps most enthusiastically they hold the giant fabric and help create the sea in ‘blue’. It ends with a great free play session using pieces of fabric previously used in the final section.
Dance for young children would not usually be high on my list of ‘must-sees’, but The Colour of Me is rather fun – for everyone.
The Colour of Me by Wriggle Dance Theatre tours nationally to March 2017. Click here for dates.
Running time: approximately 55 minutes