IMPERMANENCE Returns to Edinburgh Fringe with VENUS 2.0

IMPERMANENCE, the award-winning contemporary dance company run by directors, choreographers and performers Roseanna Anderson and Joshua Ben-Tovim, return to the Edinburgh Fringe for just six performances of their new show VENUS 2.0 at ZOO Southside from 19 to 24 August.
 
VENUS 2.0 is a white-knuckle ride through the evolution of Fascism. Six chameleonic dancers invite the audience into a time-bending cabaret, a world of explosive physicality, comedy, familiar faces and an obsession with Futurism and the future. Why did it start? How does it stop? Where does it end?
 
The show takes its name from the actions of the Suffragette Mary Richardson who in 1914, in protest at women being denied the vote, vandalised Velázquez’s painting, The Rokeby Venus, at the National Gallery. Richardson would later go on to lead the Women's Section of the British Union of Fascists - and environmental activists would go on to attack the same painting in 2023.
 
It is exactly this kind of political ambiguity that fascinates Anderson and Ben-Tovim and VENUS 2.0 is part of an ongoing exploration of the growth of radical ideologies in the early 20th century hich has included the BBC-commissioned short film BLAST, which won Best Dance Film at Aesthetica Film Festival, and their online gallery DECADE which featured responses from 100 artists and was created during lockdown. 
 
VENUS 2.0 is written by Peter Clements and directed by Anderson and Ben-Tovim, who also perform in the work alongside Oxana Panchenko, Joseph Raisi-Varzaneh, Owen Ridley-DeMonick and Daisy West. The dancers have created the choreography collaboratively.
 
Composer Li Yilei’s pulsing electronic composition careers between tranquil minimalism and jangling sound clusters. Lighting design is by Jackie Shemesh and costumes by Julian Smith.

VENUS 2.0 sees IMPERMANENCE back at the Fringe for the first time in eight years following hit shows SEXBOX in 2017 and DaDaDarling in 2015.
 
IMPERMANENCE are based at The Mount Without, an ancient city centre church in Bristol which Anderson and Ben-Tovim have transformed into a beautiful 200-seat theatre. Alongside innovative participation and community projects, the venue presents the work of a different choreographer each month, representing one of the biggest programmes of independent dance outside of London.   
 

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