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Eyes, hair, mouth: Darkie Armo Girl at Finborough Theatre

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Darkie Armo Girl, Karine Bedrossian’s electrifying one-woman show, commands attention from the moment it begins. First performed in 2022 and revived last year, it now returns for extra performance and it's an event not to miss. The show takes you through the thrills and horrors of a hectic life. She struts, shimmies, and taunts while revealing some horrific truths. She is such an irresistible storyteller that you find yourself hooked. The story is one of fame, glamour, abuse, self-harm, and suicide. If that subject matter doesn't sound like your cup of tea, you haven't seen it delivered with such high energy and provocation. It's currently at the Finborough Theatre . The show's title refers to a slur a popular girl at school once called her. Her ancestry is Armenian, and her parents were from Cyprus, where they fled the civil war and arrived in the UK with nothing. Shortly after she was born in Roehampton. The birth was an emergency C-section that left the baby and ...

Movies: Pina 3D


PINA - Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost - International Trailer from neueroadmovies on Vimeo.

Pina 3D is a tribute to the work of choreographer Pina Bausch and tells of the feelings of her dance company to her unexpected death in 2009. At times it feels more like an embalming than a celebration of her work and her life. You're not presented with any background, or much biography (but it is on the internet), it is about the performance of four of Pina's works intercut with other scenes and anecdotes from the dancers, which are occasionally poignant...

You could be forgiven with all the gloating about 3D coming to the art house movies that this film is any better than the standard 3D fare. Alas it is not. Like all 3D films it is under-lit and like watching a focus group through a two-way mirror, even to the point the smears on the heavy 3D eyewear give the impression of fingerprints on the window pane. For most times dancers in the distance looked blurry and washed out and the movement distorted to the point that I felt I was a stroke patient. Watching the poor quality image was infuriating to the point of distraction.

Only on occasions does it look brilliant and makes use of the format, such as when a woman stands on a chair and dives through a mans arms like a fish, or in the scenes with water or on location in Wuppertal (the suspended monorail makes a few guest starring appearances). These are few and far between however. It isn't particularly sexy or sensual either (notwithstanding the partial nudity, the occasional nipple and obviously fit bodies). For something so fluid and thrilling to see live, it seems a bit plain...

All told it is an interesting failure... You're likely to leave the cinema with your head spinning, but that's the shutter effect from the LCD glasses rather than anything artistic or inspired. See it in 2D.

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