Review by Grace Swadling
The phrase “Like nothing you've ever seen before” gets thrown around here and there in reviews but when I tell you Pony Cam Collective's ‘Burn Out Paradise’ is like nothing you've ever seen before, I promise I genuinely mean every single word.
Part theatrical presentation, part feat of athleticism, ‘Burn Out Paradise’ has a simple concept; four practitioners, four treadmills, five tasks to complete in 40min or the entire audience is offered refunds (and no, they're not kidding).
What you get however, is a sort of frenzied live action event where the performers are pushing their bodies in real time and the audience are an integral part of the action. Each treadmill represents a different area of life: ‘survival’, ‘admin’, ‘performance’ and ‘leisure’. The tasks vary wildly (have you ever seen anyone make and cook spaghetti from scratch on a treadmill?) and each artist is on their treadmill for 10 minutes before swapping treadmills and picking up that treadmills assigned task where the previous artist left it. On top of this, the overarching goal is to beat their personal best from the last production and this is virtually impossible without the active assistance from the audience.
This connection between audience and performer is what makes this production so brilliant; the audience is rooting for the artists to achieve their tasks but also becomes a part of the performance and how much or little they interact directly impacts the outcome. We're all in this together, which allows the audience to experience that euphoric high before burn out, especially if the tasks aren't achieved. For our Thursday night performance, it was down to the wire and by the end of the production it felt more like you were part of the crowd at a sports match - the roar of the audience after the final countdown to the end was like nothing I'd experienced in a theatre.
The wonderful thing about ‘Burn Out Paradise’ is that there is no pretention of performance or theatricality. From the get-go, we were introduced by Laura Aldos to the concept, the lights were on, the performers acknowledged the audience and there was just the tension created by the dual sense of urgency and elation at watching each of the performers on their treadmills.
Pony Cam’s shows are collectively made, hence the name – there’s no writer, there’s no director and there's only the brilliance of the mind-meld of Claire Bird, Ava Campbell, William Strom, Dominic Weintraub and Hugo Williams. They maintain that ‘Burn Out Paradise’ is neither an endurance feat, nor performance art, but rather “an unraveling realization that the system we participate in is not designed for us.”
What it is is pure organised chaos and an unhinged celebration of the impossibility of life. It was also almost impossible to focus on one treadmill for too long before another pulled your attention but one of the highlights of the performance for me was Claire Bird's beat for beat recreation of her childhood dance solos - down to the costumes and an impressive splits all done on a moving treadmill.
‘Burn Out Paradise’ has a deeper social commentary on the rising struggle of the day to day. How can we expect to eat healthy, remember to hydrate, maintain a social life, nourish our creative souls, ensure to take time for ourselves and focus on our mental health all whilst paying rent, working 40 hour weeks and keeping up with rising cost of living crisis? Are we all just running head first towards burn out? It also highlights the plight of the contemporary artist; how do creatives juggle all the aspects of their life as well as find time to create and make work in an economy that increasingly devalues the arts?
It is a clever show that can speak to these relevant socio-political issues whilst also showing moments like poor William having to wax his armpits whilst running on the Leisure treadmill. And not to be dismissive of the darker celebration of the struggles to embrace boundaries in our lives…but it's also just a whole lotta fun.
The magic is that the show is different every single time with every new audience and it is a brilliant combination of performance and improvisation. Fresh off the back of a successful Melbourne Fringe run, Burn Out Paradise had a short stint as part of the lovely Bondi Fest and is now headed to Edinburgh Fringe. It is a sweaty, stressful and hilariously engaging piece of work and I highly encourage everyone to keep an eye on Pony Cam Collective!
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