Slap And Tickle
Slap and Tickle won a Total Theatre Award Edinburgh Festival 2017
SLAP AND TICKLE is a dark and ribald physical commentary on cultural mores, forays and sexual taboos. Liz Aggiss places herself centre stage in this solo performance in a vociferously moving and disorientating display of contradictions and interpretations, on girls, ladies, women, mummys, mothers, bitches and dogs, pensioners and senior citizens. Decoding mythologies, platitudes, refrains and old wives tales, this performance navigates itself into a feminist soup; it is push and pull, punishment and reward, slap and tickle……all the way home.
Conceived, written, choreographed and performed by Liz Aggiss, SLAP AND TICKLE beats a path through the personal and historical. The stage is littered with an aural and visual collage; from archive and cover versions, to radio nostalgia and contemporary reference. The performance lurches relentlessly from spoken word to expressionist and music hall movement and gesture, from costume change to prop manipulation.
The performance is driven by content that embodies feminist dance practices, is framed by the politics that challenge and resist the ‘authority’ of formal conventions, revising attitudes towards mature female visibility
“The hilarious tickle never undermines the serious slap in this solo – sheer brilliance.” Mary Brennan The Herald
“empowering, liberating and moving” Courtney Chapman arthursseat.net
“With the spit of punk and the polish of ballet, Liz Aggiss transformed into a singular provocateur” Lorna Irvine Exeunt Magazine
“a very funny solo piece… no need for Aggiss to bemoan the lack of opportunities facing older women in the theatre, because she puts herself centre stage through her live art practice.”Lyn Gardner
“………….personal, pertinent and potent”. Sarah Kent londondance.com
“sidesplittingly funny, entertainingly choreographed and spectacularly devoid of ordinariness or political correctness”. Niki McWilliams theatre bubble
‘’Divided into three acts, Slap & Tickle is a vaudevillian journey through the Ages of Woman. It’s crammed with musical hall leitmotifs; Aggiss punctuates her subversive nursery rhymes and joyously grotesque phrases with shouts of, “Come on everybody! Let’s have a party!……..There’s a giddy, sinister air to the whole show” KA Bradley Exeunt Magazine
Slap and Tickle is supported by Arts Council England, Dance4, South East Dance, University of Bath.
Slap and Tickle has been presented over 60 times including; SICK! Manchester, Hear Me Roar Lancaster, Yorkshire Dance Leeds, Mature Moves Tasmania, Gender Bender Bologna, Ignite Bristol, DIG Glasgow, RISE Findhorn, The Showroom Chichester, DanceLive Aberdeen, Brighton Festival, BDE Cardiff, British Council Showcase Edinburgh Festival, Orlando Bergamo Italy, B(Old) South Bank London, Age on Stage Stockholm Sweden, Curious Festival Baltic Gateshead, Boulevard Festival Den Bosch, Sziget Budapest, LEAP Liverpool, Montevideo Uruguay, WOW festival Rio de Janeiro
RESEARCH
The research process was informed by, in no particular order: Dancers: Hilde Holger,Valeska Gert: Jia Ruskaja: Marika Rokk: Vera Skonerel: Dore Hoyer: Anta Berber: Hilde Holger: Bodenwieser and Mensendiek early radical feminist body culture Visual Artists: Hannah Hoch: Louise Bourgeois: Sophie Calle: Claude Cahun: Annette Messenger: Vivienne Westwood: Edvard Muybridge. Feminist Manifestos: Mina Loy: Meret Oppenheim: Helen Cixous: Catherine Clement: Caitlin Moran: Germaine Greer Music: The double entendre and British Music Hall1910-1944: Mrs Mills: Depeche Mode: Ian Dury: Doris Day: Reading: Wise Children Angela Carter: Rank Ladies: gender and cultural hierarchy in vaudeville by Alison Kibler: Hermoine Gingold Growing old disgracefully: The Body, Dance and Cultural Theory Helen Thomas: Miscellaneous: Listen with Mother: Phonetics and early reading materials 1950 onwards
Slap and Tickle Ed Fest BC showcase with interview.
https://edinburghshowcase.britishcouncil.org/directory/artist/liz-aggiss/2017
