MissXL discovers terpsichorean heights in a dancer’s demise.
“Long’s world-weary Leisure Mistress, modelled in part on Marlene Dietrich in her later performing life, is wheeled into the performance space by a faithful assistant. Dressed in blue chiffon with oversized faux diamond rings dripping off her fingers, the Leisure Mistress repeatedly tucks a wayward section of blonde bob behind her ear. Her first dance (she announces each numerically) is performed lying on her back. Only her hands and feet move in repetitive phrases in time with a perky musical track. The other dances are similarly compressed variations of the Diva’s once famous dance pieces now performed in absurdly reduced form. One dance is performed leaning against the side of the stage. As her legs collapse under her, the Leisure Mistress runs her hands down her thighs to re-straighten them. The correctional gesture becomes a key movement phrase in her dance of extremities. In the final dance (“the first she ever performed”) the Leisure Mistress undertakes a costume change, which proves disastrous. In a hair net and undersized dress which gapes at the zipper, she cavorts about the stage performing derivative contemporary dance movements in an attempt to remain relevant to her audience (having described herself as a “submerging artist” in the age of the emerging artist). Somehow this final image captures what Julie-Anne Long is so good at conjuring and performing in dance: the weird and wonderful world of the grotesque and the anxieties that form it.” (Kerrie Schaefer, RT49 )
| Concept/choreography/performance | Julie-Anne Long |
| Dramaturgy/Writing | Virginia Baxter |
| Lighting/Production | Janine Peacock |
| Stage Management | Victoria Spence |
| Design/Construction | Rohan Wilson |
| Personal assistant to the Leisure Mistress | Victoria Spence |
| Video | Samuel James |
| Video Costumes/Construction | Joanne Rapa |
| Producer | One Extra Dance |
| Music: | Esther Phillips What a Difference A Day Makes |
| Schubert/Liszt Leize Flechen meine Liede | |
| Schubert Impromptu in G Flat Major | |
| Mendelssohn Spring Song | |
| Beethoven Moonlight Sonata | |
| Mendelssohn Song Without Words | |
| Dionne Warwick Theme from Valley of the Dolls | |
| Live text inspired by a recording of “An Evening with Marlene Dietrich” |