Up Yours!

One Up One Down sees Natasha Gilmore capitalise on the success on her Blank Album with a more coherent and integrated hour. Using three dancers, original performance poetry and a rich voiced actor, she deconstructs the pressures of consumerism in a sprightly session that is more dance than theatre. Although the dancers represent three aspects of the same person – Kat, Kate and Kitty – the abstraction of the choreography allows them to establish clear identities and play off each other. While Kat is fashion obsessed and glamorous, Kate has a career and emotional isolation, and Kitty longs for childhood and freedom. Yet they are trapped by the allure of the shopping centre, dragged away from their spiritual ambitions to the relentless roll of product placement and new, improved selves. The music, by Quee McArthur, is the weakest part of the show: it lacks gravity and feels almost incidental, especially when the dancer sing their own melodies in words. But the quick change between scenarios, the effective characterisation and the bouncy poetry ensure that this witty satire makes its point without labouring it.