Dance Massive 3-15 March 2009

Sticky, cheesy, breezy: The Fondue Set’s No Success Like Failure

2 March 2009

By Urszula Dawkins

The publicity blurb calls it "part talent quest, part educational forum and part cabaret". Reviews have described it as "a swirling, glittering, stupefying soup of reference and creation" and "a ludicrous theatrical world that somehow despite its many absurdities makes perfect sense". From what I can gather, No Success Like Failure will involve a blue tinsel curtain, a rabbit suit, plywood palm trees, a chat about ‘the moment before something happens', sobbing in unison, syncopated breathing, French theorists, ‘sad dancing' and a gold jumpsuit. Apparently NSLF grew out of an earlier work The Set (Up), has previously been seen at the Sydney Opera House Studio, Campbelltown Arts Centre (NSW), and at North Melbourne Town Hall in 2008, and is the result of a collaboration with UK choreographer/director Wendy Houston (Houston's Desert Island Dances and Happy Hour were both seen at last year's Melbourne International Arts Festival). Of their interest in ‘failure', the Sydney-based group says: "Well, there's No Success Like Failure and there's No Business Like Show Business".

To delve a little into No Success Like Failure, I threw a few questions out to Fondue Set members Jane McKernan, Emma Saunders and Elizabeth Ryan...

Firstly, can you tell me how The Fondue Set came into being?

TFS: "The genesis was for some of us very recent, and for some of us you have to go a long way back. Well, before we were The Fondue Set obviously we were someone else. Well, then we entered across the stage and before that we kind of, well, we entered across the stage. Well, I was actually, um, in the other room because I need to prepare sometimes separately. Well, just before, well, we were over there."

What are the ideas or philosophy behind The Fondue Set's work?

TFS: "There's lots of theory, and theories of theories. There's some people who've written books, long ones - we'll just namedrop a few: Deleuze and Guattari, Baudrillard and Cixous, and they're all French for some reason. We can't think of any English ones. Derrida, he's French. Foucault is also French. Not that we want you to think that we're just doing a list - like B is for Baudrillard, C is for Cixous, D is for Deleuze, we can't think of one for E, Foucault, Guattari. Heidegger wasn't a postmodernist but he was a phenomenologist, which is important."

How would you describe No Success Like Failure to someone who hasn't seen the show?

TFS: "It's not going to be an encyclopaedic kind of show. No, there won't be the full gamut of stuff, not encyclopaedic in the sense of, well, E is for Emotion. No, it's not going to be E is for Emotion, though there will be some emotion during the show, but just not when we get to the E is for Emotion section, because as we're trying to tell you, there's not going to be an E is for Emotion section."

Can you tell me about the creative process that resulted in No Success Like Failure? And particularly, about Wendy Houstoun's involvement?

TFS: "During the process, it was best to be sitting in a place where we could comfortably ignore the outside world. It was not the same as sleep. It was like, it was like, it was like...it was like daydreaming. All we needed to do was let it wash over us. We've found we don't remember it all consciously. At the end of the process, we felt invigorated with a sense of inner calm and refreshment. Wendy's voice went with us, and we found we could simply let go."

The reviews and descriptions I've seen of the show paint a picture of a complex, chaotic work - what do you hope the audience will take away from the show?

TFS: "Their self-confidence will improve and they'll feel more in control of their lives."

Do you involve the audience directly in your shows, and if so, why?

TFS: "Yes, yes, A is for Audience, that's them. Or A could be for applause, that's also them, but they won't be applauding until the end of the show. If they have questions, they can save them for the end or not even bother because we won't be stopping for question time. If that's what they're expecting, we don't know what to say...expect something else."

If you could ask an audience member to do one thing before they come to see a Fondue Set performance, what would that one thing be?

TFS: "To think about where they were before they left there to come here, and before that even. Where were they before they were there, and then there, and then here? And we could go on to even before that. What were they wearing before that they were there or then there or here?"

What does The Fondue Set bring to Dance Massive and perhaps to contemporary dance in general?

Elizabeth: "We have only ever been in most people's dreams, but now here we are, you'll almost be able to touch us, almost."

Jane: "We are not acting. We really are true on stage."

Emma: "We'll give you something to watch."