NAIVE DANCE MASTERCLASS    (available for booking)

'Hilarious, bizarre and captivating' - The Latest Magazine  ★★★★★       
  
'Sewn together with humour, irony and talent, it might not be until afterwards that one realizes that Naïve Dance Masterclass is just a little bit mind blowing' - Everything Theatre ★★★★

‘An eloquent parody of the excesses of performance art, and a joyfully liberating way to spend the better part of an hour.’ - Fringe Guru ★★★★

‘Surreal, weird and brilliant... Rudkin has amazing stage presence. Every time he switches back to his formal lecture mode there’s a moment of realisation at how mad the piece has become’ – Total Theatre

Drenched in ecstasy and anguish, this avant-garde clown show combines deadpan word-play and physical tomfoolery in a sweet blast of erudite mayhem.  It is a show about cultural consumption, status anxiety and the quest for authenticity.  

SYNOPSIS:  An electrical fault during a gala performance leads a renowned dancer to the shocking realisation that his technical prowess simply leads spectators to more deeply comprehend their own inadequacies.   This insight prompts a dramatic change of career path into the emergency services, and the search for a quasi-religious dance form that transcends egoistic desires through the active pursuit of humiliating experiences.  An encounter with an immigrant hula-hoopist provides the pivotal moment in the formalisation of this new genre, but also leads to a romantic entanglement that is to test to the limit his ability to dance his way out of existential crisis.

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HISTORY:  I have presented a series of performances  under this title since in 2002, when it first appeared as a 15 minute solo piece as part of the LIFT festival cabaret, aboard HMS President (London).  It has developed between each performance, gradually acquiring new elements and growing in length. In 2012 the project received Arts Council England funding and was developed with directorial input from Prof. Liz Aggiss, Petra Massey and Silvia Mercuriali (also performing), and presented at The Old Market Theatre (Brighton),  Peraspera festival (Bologna), Merge festival (London)  and the Soho Theatre.  It is most definitely still available, both in its full length and as a cabaret act.



Other appearances include:
 
the Komedia (Brighton), 
L'echangeur (Paris), 
Liverpool Hope University, 
Whitstable Biennale, 
Winchester Hat Fair cabaret, 
The Hackney Empire,  
Shunt Lounge, 
Camden People’s Theatre,  
the Nightingale Theatre  (Brighton)  the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. ​