When two contemporary dancer/choreographers decide to take up stand-up, what you get is the brilliant and hilarious New Art Club. Pete Senton took time out from the dance to talk to us about his show with Tom Roden.
When two contemporary dancer/choreographers decide to take up stand-up, what you get is the brilliant and hilarious New Art Club. Pete Senton took time out from the dance to talk to us about his show with Tom Roden.
How would you describe your show?
“It’s a comedy show. It’s built around funny physical ideas. It’s very silly at times but we are really from a contemporary dance background so it’s not a stupid parody; it’s just really good, really funny dancing and talking.”
How do you feel about dancing?
“Jesus, after doing it for over 20 years I couldn’t possibly say anything except it’s complicated. A mixture of love, hate, fear, pain, respect, astonishment and a load of other stuff. It’s a book’s worth of responses.”
Do you still work in ‘serious’ dance as well?
“Yes. I like the way you put ‘serious’ in quotation marks. Tom is a highly experienced opera choreographer having worked with Opera North, Glyndeborne and the Royal Opera House and we both choreograph and direct projects for other companies.”
Is your show to any extent lampooning dance practice or rather, celebrating it – or somewhere in between?
“Neither. I hate the idea of either lampooning or celebrating. One of those things is full of hatred and one of them is moronic and uncritical. It’s more like this: we are a stand-up comedy double act who happen to be choreographers and dancers. We see the funny things in the choreographic ideas that we have. We have really good choreographic ideas and then tease out of them what is funny.”
New Art Club perform Big Bag Of Boom at The Bosco from March 31 – April 24. It’s at 8.15pm Wednesday – Saturday and 7.15pm on Sundays. Tickets are $23 – $30 and available through Ticketmaster online, 1300 660 013 and at the door.
