Dollhouse, performed by the choreographer and dancer Bill Coleman and the sound artist Gordon Monahan, shows a man whose living space is disintegrating around him. As Monahan’s score whoops and wails, mousetraps snap at Coleman’s feet, furniture collapses, and even the floor attacks him, as sticky tiles adhere to his body. In one passage, Monahan “plays” Coleman, applying electrodes to his belly and thighs that set off sympathetic squarks from the sound equipment. All of this has a slapstick, Buster Keaton-esque quality. But there’s a profound sense of entropy, too. Of things winding down, and ineluctably getting worse. Coleman has the etiolated look of a medieval martyr, an impression heigh
Róisín O’Brien of SeeingDance commends Dollhouse in her review from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She calls Dollhouse "...an enjoyable event in its own way, sonically compelling and visually intriguing, an hour of curious, intrepid meanderings through an intricately designed environment." She also remarks on the familiarity of sound created by composer Gordon Monahan. "I was struck by the familiarity of the sounds, despite the visual and mechanical difference. Plunging water onto pots and pans recalls the sort of grand, sweeping musical moments of dramatic intensity in Hollywood cinema; the distorted noises from the sensors of Coleman’s skin call to mind an alien invasion from a HG Wells no
Bill and Gordon have been nominated for a Total Theatre & The Place Award for Dance based on their performance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The shortlisted shows will now move to a judging panel where shows are seen by leading arts industry figures from seven countries including critics, academics, artists and programmers. The judging panel will announce their decisions at an awards ceremony on Thursday 24 August. See full list of awards and nominations, here.
Ahead of their performance at Canada Scene back in July, Bill Coleman and Gordon Monahan were interviewed by Peter Robb for ARTSFILE. “The dance/sound creation called Dollhouse mixes the unique talents of choreographer/dancer Bill Coleman and the sonic skills of avant-garde composer Gordon Monahan, (brother of RBC Ottawa Bluesfest’s Mark Monahan and the winner of the 2013 Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts). In advance of their unsettling, stimulating and comic performance involving Coleman’s journey across snapping mousetraps, beside bubbling beakers full of boiling water and across sticky floor tiles, on July 15, they answered some questions from ARTSFILE.” Read full interv
British Vogue has picked Bill Coleman and Gordon Monahan's Dollhouse as a recommendation for shows to catch at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year. Heralding the show as, "tap dance as you’ve never seen it before", Dollhouse is one of the sixteen shows highlighted in the article. To read full article, click here.
