No Success Like Failure
Watch as The Fondue Set itself gets blown apart into tiny pieces and reformed spectacularly with the help of UK Director Wendy Houstoun. Heaps of new solos! Only some unison! New costumes and way more text! No Success Like Failure is part talent quest! part educational forum and part cabaret! A hilarious "How To" show that leaves you misguided, misdirected and on a crystal clear path to nowhere. There is motivational dancing, negative cheering, successful snoring, hypnotism, word bingo and more! All is not what it seems in this next installment of Sydney's most motivated, clever and moving dance company. Watch and learn!! and definitely always still retaining our signature theatricality and our concern with engaging with the audience, choreographic structures, interesting content and mighty ways of developing dance into new and unknown places.
The Studio, The Sydney Opera House - June 2008
Campbelltown Arts Centre - June 2008
Arts House North Melbourne Town Hall - August 2008
Dance Massive (www.dancemassive.com.au) - Mar 5 to Mar 8, 2009
Direction in collaboration with: Wendy Houstoun
Design in collaboration with: Agatha Gothe-Snape
Lighting Design and Production: Neil Simpson
Produced by: Rosalind Richards (Artful Management)
"Failure never looked so good, so silly, so successful...and so intelligent as The Fondue Set, with a helping push from collaborating director Wendy Houstoun, achieve a new level of wit in a bizarrely coherent show that is as carefully paced as it is manic."
Keith Gallasch, Realtime 2008
"All three performers are clowns in sequins and spandex, and along with collaborative director Wendy Houstoun, have created a ludicrous theatrical world that somehow despite its many absurdities makes perfect sense...No Success Like Failure is hilarious, entertaining and refreshingly silly."
Jordan Beth Vincent, The Age 2008
"At times you get the impression the script and layout have been thrown into a blender and poured into the theatre space. The Fondues flit from a dreamscape involving a fatigued icon of success (a sultry Ryan in a tight gold dress) and a wordly wise rabbit (Saunders in a bunny costume) to McKernan delivering a triumphant manifesto against just about everything. The Fondues' dance work, and group chemistry, are still a winner but what Houstoun and the trio have started developing to particularly rich levels are the characters of Ryan, McKernan and Saunders as solo performers."
Lenny Ann Low, Sydney Morning Herald, 2008
