“Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?” wrote the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo who, despite suffering injuries in a bus accident when she was 18 that left her disabled, refused to remain earthbound in any part of her life. The human desire to take wing, to fly above adversity and convention, and make earth and sky one is explored in this big, colourful but often unwieldy show, created for the Greenwich and Docklands International festival. It throws projection, fireworks, dance and aerial skills into the mix but still remains grounded.
It’s a piece that finally achieves take-off in its dying moments, as women from the Mexican village of Xochiapulco, known as Voladoras, throw themselves off a high pole and fly around it headfirst with unshowy grace. It’s undeniably beautiful, almost moving, but the links of this ancient fertility rite that celebrates being at one with nature to what has gone before are pretty tenuous, and will remain shadowy unless you’ve read the programme. It explains that the show is divided into four sections, representing air, earth, water and fire and all aspects of Kahlo’s life and work. She lamented her childlessness, but gave birth to many great paintings.
Without the programme’s help, it’s hard to make head nor tail of what’s really going on – or why. The text – an earnest, often impenetrable and sometimes giggle-inducing stream of consciousness – is so dense and overwhelming that it becomes a hindrance rather than a help. The piece is always at its best when it is most physical: the Shechter Junior dancers bring a muscular energy to the proceedings. But even the aerial work, played out on a vertical wall which is probably supposed to reflect the mirror Kahlo had fixed above her bed to help her paint, is a slightly clumsy device in a disappointing show that is simultaneously overblown and bland.
