SALA – What’s Your Crutch? – Kat Coppock & Fiona Gardner – The Reading Room

By Peter Maddern

I suppose we all have them, we just don’t much acknowledge them, but in so many ways we create things for our mind to fix upon to get us through the day (or not get through the day, as the case can sometimes also be.) Kat Coppock and Fiona Gardner have teamed together for SALA for a weekly ‘moving installation’ around the crutches in our life at The Reading Room.

Last Sunday, we had ‘the Body Camouflaged’, (this week ‘the Body Extreme’), where the girls attempt to convey ínstallationally’ (read theatrically) the very crutches that people have conveyed to them on their website (Click here to go to it). From changing hair, to shaving legs and the perpetual allure of a bargain, (Fiona’s) dance and (Kat’s) visual art combine to present back to us our addictions.

This is certainly ambitious, especially on a weekly basis, but the personal dynamics between the two artists certainly comes through. The opening scene of shopping and then more shopping got the piece off to an intriguing start and Kat’s innovative work on an old transparency projector with inks and dyes over glamour images of the ‘50s and earlier, with Fiona posing in relief, was all good fun. Whether audience members, this critic included, could exactly make out what was going on throughout the half hour show is a good question but none can criticise this highly experimental theatre for not having a red hot go.

Trust it all to gel in the final two installations and then maybe resurface in next year’s Fringe. Post your crutch (anonymously) to their website and get along to see it played out for you or just for something quite different.

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