Reviewed by Nadia Free­man

Photo cred­it: Dav­id Vagg

This is no typ­ic­al dance num­ber meant to dis­tract and delight you with sparkles and clap-along num­bers.  Lim­its sits in the realm of theatre that is to chal­lenge its audi­ence and give them a chance to view what it might be like to step into the shoes of anoth­er per­son. Inspired by her own exper­i­ence of invis­ible dis­ab­il­ity, Bon­nie Curtis explores ideas around per­ceived beauty and func­tion­al impair­ment in her show Lim­its.

The per­form­ance starts with an empty stage and the Creature (Bon­nie Curtis) upstage left, sit­ting at a van­ity.  The Creature is try­ing to mas­ter the dif­fi­cult task of apply­ing lip­stick. A ritu­al many women do in pre­par­a­tion to present them­selves to the world.

The per­form­ance takes us through the creature’s explor­a­tion of them­selves and their body.  Walk­ing, gyr­at­ing, writh­ing and work­ing out the fun­da­ment­als of every part of move­ment a body can make. Bon­nie is a for­mid­able dan­cer and pur­sues the lim­its of move­ments through not just her body but fin­gers, toes and facial expres­sion, often con­tort­ing her face to demon­strate the very chal­lenge of being com­fort­able with­in one’s skin.

While this is primar­ily a silent piece there is some speech as the creature mut­ters to her­self about per­form­ing dif­fer­ent tasks and the record­ing of phrases that are played, over and over again between ten­sion-build­ing audio design like the rumin­a­tion of someone sink­ing into self-doubt.  Oth­er nar­rat­ive devices are used includ­ing the van­ity that is moved through­out the per­form­ance to new loc­a­tions, and it starts to feel that this is more than an object to look at one’s reflec­tion, but a bur­den as they labour to bring it with them through every scene.

Some of the scenes are per­haps longer than they need to be and may bene­fit from trans­ition­ing earli­er while oth­ers were quite mes­mer­ising includ­ing when the creature sits on top of the van­ity down­stage with their back to the audi­ence and we can see the ripples of Bonnie’s back mov­ing and their reflec­tion in the mir­ror.  Oth­er scenes use icons of fem­in­in­ity includ­ing bar­bie dolls, shoes and dresses all of which the creature struggles with and even­tu­ally finds its own way to fit.

Lim­its is show­ing at Te Aua­ha until Sat­urday 25th of Feb­ru­ary at 7.30 pm each night.  You can get your tick­ets through the Fringe Box Office.