Review: ADELAIDE FESTIVAL 2016: GROUPE F - À FLEUR DE PEAU Was A Genuine Spectacular

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Saturday 27th February 2016

Adelaide audiences are notorious for the number of late arrivals, regularly holding up performances while the ushers try to get people into their seats, and others who arrived in plenty of time glaring at them for being so inconsiderate. On this occasion, late-comers were not pandered to. Tough luck. The diminishing time to the start of the performance was projected onto the screen, the almost 26,000 in the audience shouting out the countdown on the last ten seconds. Immediately, the event began.

À Fleur de Peau literally translates as "towards flower of skin/hide" and is generally interpreted as 'skin-deep', or 'oversensitive' Throughout the Groupe F performance various skin patterns appeared on the huge triangular screen above which much of the action took place. The constantly evolving patterns rolled upwards, as a humanoid being covered in bright lights appeared and walked on the spot, appearing to be walking towards us due to this projection.

Director, Christophe Berthonneau, draws on both meanings, the projected images representing nature through the many and varied skins and surfaces, whilst calling for people to be sensitive to the ecology, or so we are told. One could, of course, simply sit back and relax and enjoy the spectacle without worrying about what, if anything, it was all supposed to mean. I suspect that this is what the vast majority did, and no harm in that, either.

On that purely aesthetic level here was certainly plenty to engage as more figures joined in, some manipulating giant multicoloured flaming puppets, others suspended apparently in mid-air, thanks to a crane lost in the dark behind the performance. There were many bursts of orange flame leaping high in the air, the heat readily felt in Row D, where I was sitting. There were also, of course, many amazing bursts of fireworks, each round surpassing the one before. These drew the usual exclamations of surprise and delight from the audience.

American electro-acoustic composer, Scott Gibbons, wrote the soundtrack, and so many of the pyrotechnical displays and fireworks were very accurately timed to coincide with the beats and accents. A huge number of people were involved in mounting this production, many working away very hard behind the scenes to support the half-dozen performers.

Coming back to the stated intent, the natural visuals eventually give way to images of man-made structures, astronomical images, and the keyboard of a laptop computer. This follows the trajectory that shows we are being far from ecologically sound, our sensitivity to the earth long overlooked, and a path to the stars suggesting we could go on to kill other planets. A thousand irritating flashes that had nothing to do with Groupe F suggested that Berthonneau could be on to something here.

Take a look at the event that you either saw or missed, here.

Photo: Daniel Robin.

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