Mas Distinguidas
Space Theatre
7:00pm, Fri 10 Mar 2000
Score: 9
Short Review: Fascinating
At last, a Festival show that I truly fell in love with. The Spanish performance artist and dancer, La Ribot, presented her second collection of “Distinguished Pieces” to a Friday night audience who all seemed as captivated as I with her performance.
As we entered The Space, La Ribot lay naked on the floor, rolling a mirror alongside her to allow the audience to see her entire naked form. This constituted one of her twelve “Distinguished Pieces” for the night. It was followed by other amusing, abstract, but just generally wonderful pieces.
This might read like a big perv piece, given that 90% of the time La Ribot is naked, but ’tis not the case. Indeed, she does make light of her nakedness (“Narcisa”, “Manual de uso”) and, whilst audience participation is minimal, the look she shot the audience member who laughed at the start of “Poema Infinito” was priceless.
La Ribot’s Pieces, though best classified as performance art, also occasionally allowed her to show her classical dance background, her movements full of elegance and grace. This, for me, was a wonderfully enjoyable performance, definitely the best of the Festival so far.