Review: HAUS of YOLO serves up a chaotic mix of fast fashion and bawdy acrobatics

The overall effect is a bit like Zoolander crashing into a circus sideshow with an apple cart full of gaudy fabric

By Janet Smith

HAUS of YOLO. Photo by Ben Sarten

The Cultch presents HAUS of YOLO at the York Theatre to June 15

HAUS OF YOLO IS A hot mess—and that seems to be entirely the point. So your enjoyment of the Dust Palace’s latest touring show will have a lot to do with how you respond to screaming chaos.

The audience for the New Zealand company’s latest Vancouver visit clearly enjoyed the raucous party atmosphere—loudly cheering on the shimmery-Spandex-clad performers as they took turns at an industrial sewing machine to whip up beyond-skimpy costumes, or swung from straps or silks above the tiny stage. Add heaps of campy sexual innuendo, audience participation, and a soundtrack that spanned Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the Prodigy; in one cool sequence, a performer tippy-toed across a bed of broken glass to Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand”. 

Along the way, the troupe took the piss out of the fashion industry, framing things with an elaborate narrative about the exaggerated poseur villain-designer Welt, who ruled over his “Meat Puppets” models.

HAUS of YOLO was reaching for a lot—the overall effect a bit like Zoolander crashing into a circus sideshow with an apple cart full of gaudy fabric. The parody only half worked, mostly because the cheesy shorts and tanks the cast sewed up in split seconds—literal fast fashion—had little to do with the world of Anna Wintour that they kept namechecking.

HAUS of YOLO was at its best in bawdy acrobatic moments that gleefully upended gender expectations. Eve Gordon often balanced the full weight of Luis Meirelles on her legs and torso as they contorted on a trapeze. Jaine Mieka also pulled off crack hoops and silks routines. But several of the acts fell short of the high level of circus Vancouverites have now come to expect, thanks to multiple visits by the likes of Australia’s Circa, Cirque du Soleil (whose ice show CRYSTAL is at the Pacific Coliseum at the moment), and Quebec renegades Cirque Alfonse—whose Barbu, last June, was raw, too, but was crammed with much more crazily choreographed acrobatics (and had far less speaking). Even the Dust Palace’s own The Goblin Market, which came here in 2017, felt sleeker and more finished.

Still, you had to admire the company’s utter lack of pretention, not to mention its queer joy and body- and sex-positive messaging. And there was no denying the good time most of the audience was having. Just know that this feels like rough-and-ready, seat-of-the-pants circus—one best approached as a wild beginning-of-summer party.  

HAUS of YOLO. Photo by Ben Sarten

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