The Fondue Set (Emma Saunders, Elizabeth Ryan, Jane McKernan) photo Suzanne Brown |
Like those cute dashboard puppies with heads waggling on a spring, the Fondues play humorously with repetitive movement in their work—not so much obsessive-compulsive de Keersmaeker-style as playing that fab new 45 single over and over again for the simple teenage joy of it. It’s not so surprising that my terms of reference are to defunct recording formats, there is definitely something vintage—swinging 50s/60s/70s/80s—about The Fondue Set. (How could there not be, named as they are after that essential 70s dinner party accoutrement?) Certainly their recent, full-length piece, Blue Moves at the Seymour Centre evoked prom night and Hitchcockian heroine/ victims for me, alongside its explorations of more contemporary female experience. Blue Moves (2002) was a welcome full-scale development from their earlier vignettes, especially following the less densely layered Soft Cheese (2001), though I did love the hilarious anarchy of that piece—perhaps inevitable when one Fondue appears with a plaster cast plus wheelchair!
Dizzyingly intoxicating, intoxicatingly dizzy, they make me want to put on red lipstick and dance. In high heels. And a frock. Where can I get some shiny red boots?
The Fondue Set’s next gig is at the 2003 Melbourne Festival where they will perform at late night cabaret venue, The Blue Thong Club, in the Black Box at the Victorian Arts Centre.
RealTime issue #57 Oct-Nov 2003 pg. 10
© Laura Ginters; for permission to reproduce apply to [email protected]