Director   Evgeny Kozlov & Alexander Bondarev
Dance   Alexander Bondarev   Irina Kozlova   Evgeny Kozlov
Technical director   Tanya Williams
Light   Alexander Bondarev
Music   Daniel Weaver

Playing on the edge of slapstick and dance, physical actions and body mime in role-reversing revelry, this bizarre odyssey through the human flesh and soul explores a neo-Frankenstein story with a sense of anatomic melancholy 

Suggested by Rembrandt’s painting ‘The anatomy of Dr. Tulip’, this peculiar, paradoxical version of Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ hurtles into parallel topsy-turvy worlds of extreme paradox, taboos, demonic doctors, clowns and clones. In Faustian laboratory, three stupid ghosts enact black anatomical experiment at times hilarious, at others deadly threatening- that progressively develops into a strange carnival of shadowy and chaotic transformations. Zany, absurd and humorous, this darkly poetic mix of dance- theatre, anatomical movement and existential drama combines pantomime- art, clowning, and acrobatics with bizarre and terrifying beautiful imagery.

Press extracts

‘Upside Down’ is a bizarre, darkly humorous parable in which man plays God- and pays the price

…a mesmerising and unsettling piece of dance theatre’

Lyn Gardner THE GUARDIAN
 

‘Whether it’s clowning or contemporary dance, this trio shared a remarkable degree of technical finesse…

it’s mad mischievous and ultimately very, very dark.’

Mary Brennan THE HERALD
 

‘The ensuing carnivalesque ballet features such beautiful choreography that each scene begs a freeze frame. In this combination of clowning, farce, dance, slapstick and mime, comprehensible language is kept to a minimum, replaced by abstract sounds and snatches of music.’
Sarah Barrell THE INDEPENDENT