'2 Dimensional Life of Her' - Fleur Elise Noble

Barbican Pit | London International Mime Festival

Memory paints pictures of an environment of blacks, whites and greys with sudden bursts of intense colour, as when the whole stage burns down in a ferocious fire caused by a careless smoker. Fire is noisy, and the noise of breaking wood and glass added to the fear that just maybe the fire was real and we the audience were in danger. But it was all projected: in fact the whole show was recorded on cameras, and projected. Almost the whole show. There was a slip of a girl who, like a slightly bossy ghost, silently entered and exited the chaotic scenes, but I never knew when she was a recorded image and when flesh and blood. In fact, like a child, I spent most of the show asking myself ‘how on earth did they do that?’

The images were in a constant state of motion; the dominant material was paper, reams and reams of rough-edged paper, where her drawings of people and things could be immediately erased, energetically and inconsequentially. She’s a brilliant artist with pencil and pen. What story there was seemed to concern a number of suited men – tall mannequins with rods to the head not able to do much more than wave – involved in the making of a film; perhaps the producers, the men with the money. Words were almost absent. Whatever she was making, she seemed to change her mind constantly, as sketches were erased (erasure was a recurring action). Things were spilled and had to be cleaned up, but as there were utilitarian objects everywhere, a mop or duster, a stepladder or a bin were always to hand.

All in 2D you understand. For most of us, magic.

In the end the ‘suits’ were crammed into a coloured boat and sailed away on the cut-out waves. Fleur Elise Noble returned to the podium where she began the show and bowed to our applause. Still in 2D.

I do hope I get a chance to see it again.

Credits

Quotes

"Fire is noisy, and the noise of breaking wood and glass added to the fear that just maybe the fire was real and we the audience were in danger."

Additional Info

Links

Fleur Elise Noble

Barbican

London International Mime Festival