Last Friday Vogue Fabrics hosted an event of Oxjam Dalston, a music and arts festival hosted in the distinctive East End district designed to raise money for Oxfam. Curated by Xavier de Sousa, a founding member of the Needless Alley Collective, the show brought together performers $HIFT$, Foxy & Husk, Louise Orwin and Xavier himself to wow us with their inventiveness, followed by a DJ set by maverick maestro Jonathan Kemp.
And wow us they definitely did. The atmospheric music of $HIFT$, taking inspiration from oriental and seemingly Indian influences to its darkly exotic tone, begun the night intriguingly. But it was Foxy & Husk, with her eccentric, wonderful one-woman show of a vulpine creation lip-synching to an old woman’s recounting of her experience of first love that had the audience breathless to her tale, both humorous and poignant.
Louise Orwin next gave us an extract from her interactive show ‘Pretty Ugly’, which begins at the Camden People’s Theatre later this month as part of their ‘Festival of Feminism’. Orwin is an immediately engaging performer, with an incisive spark to her ideas that saw some members of the audience laughing whilst others registered shock – depending, perhaps on what pieces of the projection you witnessed.
Pretty Ugly is inspired by the current trend for teenage girls to place videos of themselves on the internet asking ‘am I pretty or ugly?’ Invariably the replies from chauvinistic, bravado-led internet trolls opt for the latter. Orwin asks, amongst many other issues, why are our teenagers even tempted to rate themselves by their looks? What looks like it will be a fascinating show in full, was only marred, in my opinion, by Orwin’s showing of videos of straight males being told they are ugly saying ‘these are the abusers’. They’re not. I don’t feel Orwin truly believes so either, but this was the only point that I felt missed its spot.
Finally, was the turn of Xavier himself where I suddenly, after three or four beers, found myself plucked from the audience to throw a variety of fruit at his crotch and pour ketchup over him. An immensely fun act, with a critique of contemporary sexuality underlying it, that proved suitable finale to an intensely entertaining and enjoyable evening. Congrats, Oxjam!
• Friday 27th September @ Vogue Fabrics, 66 Stoke Newington Road, Dalston, N16 7XB
• www.wegottickets.com/oxjamdalston
• The next Oxjam Dalston event will be on Saturday 19th October, to obtain tickets please visit the above web address.
• Louise Orwin’s show ‘Pretty Ugly’ begins at the Camden People’s Theatre, 58 Hampstead Road, NW1 2PY on Weds 23rd October. 7.30pm, £10. www.cptheatre.co.uk
