Please, No More Palms
Please, No More Palms for Dance North, choreographed by Cheryl Stock, music Balanda Dancing, Kronos Quartet and Ornette Coleman, design by Robyn Gordon.
Commissioned by and premiered at 1994 National Festival of Australian Theatre, Canberra.
An affectionate tongue-in-cheek look at some of nature’s tropical eccentricities as an alternative to the cliché of swaying palms in tourist brochures. The enticing but lethal sensuality of several exotic beauties from the tropics provided source material for the work’s imagery. Humans are alien creatures in this environment. The desire to document, trample over, collect and acquire a piece of the tropics leads the obsessive anti-hero into a world where his high-tech gear and clothing is a ridiculous encumbrance and his love-affair with beauty a deadly pursuit.
Thoroughly pleasurable theatre... a light hearted celebration of some of the weird flora and fauna found in the tropics... Robyn Gordon’s costumes and set designs are delicious.
Gabrielle Hyslop, The Australian, 21 October 1994