Perfectly balancing social provocation with relatable humanity, SOFT.co is delighted to premiere their latest feminist contemporary dance theatre piece Inflated Rebel, playing at Q Theatre’s Loft from August 11-15. This rambunctious and innovative contemporary dance theatre offering is a genre-defying bid to challenge the binaries of obedience and rebellion, complete with oversized puffer jackets, blow-up pool toys, and an inflatable set.
Bad woman. Self-inflatable insurgents in a temperate feminist cloud of rebellious intentions and depreciating values. INFLATED REBEL walks the bind of power in its deflations and violent softness. A queer breeding experiment where we kill the reared and feed the uncanny. Probing the binaries of orthodoxy and rebellion, courage and bravado, submission and humility, and asks, what happens when the only thing to fear is the babe itself?
With dance at the heart of its storytelling language, the morphing textile set becomes both a costume and a character, accompanying the pair of performers on a journey both outrightly humorous and deeply poignant. Defining the intimate intersections between the female experience and the strange lands of their collective imagination, SOFT.co poses a series of questions in Inflated Rebel, such as how do we be a badder bad woman? Or conversely, how do you be a gooder good woman? Playful in the in-between, they hope the answers might scare us to death and/or climax.
Based in Tāmaki Makaurau, SOFT.co is a dance theatre company co-founded by contemporary dance artists Rose Philpott and Jessie McCall, who have worked with the likes of Footnote NZ Dance, Okareka Dance Company, Malia Johnston, and Sarah Foster-Sproull (Foster Group). As queer, pākehā, females their work investigates the intersection of their individual lived experiences with the strange lands of their collective imagination. Facilitating a dedicated space for their collaborative choreographic and design work to percolate and mature, the creative duo make work together with a strong emphasis on the female experience. Integral to the choreographic development of SOFT.co works are the visual design elements such as costume and set design, alongside highly specific sound design, creating an immersive and cohesive world for audiences to step into.
Inflated Rebel is one of several works that has been through SOFT.co’s unique incubation process, which allows them to revisit and rework projects multiple times. Having its first public showing as part of the 2019 Auckland Fringe Festival, SOFT.co then collaborated with visual artist Ralph Brown on a related digital project, ‘A Series of Inflatable Rebellions’ in 2020. Making its premiere as part of the Q Theatre’s Creative Development Programme MATCHBOX season, Inflated Rebel is the next chapter in the journey for these avant-garde artists. SOFT.co‘s other credits include their first full length work ‘HEALR’ which sold out two consecutive Auckland seasons, at The Basement in 2016 and in Q Loft as part of Tempo Dance Festival 2018 as a part of Tempo Dance Festival to audience and critical acclaim. The duo also performed a section of the work to open for Aldous Harding at the Pah Homestead in 2017.
Note – copy for this article provided by Elephant Publicity.
INFLATED REBEL plays
August 11-15 2021
Loft, Q Theatre
Wed-Sat, 7pm; Sun, 5pm
Tickets: $19 – $29 (Service fees may apply)
On-sale now via Q Theatre