Street life

Insane in the Brain
Bounce, Peacock Theatre

An upbeat, street-dance version of Romeo and Juliet, presented by Rumble, was one of the hottest tickets at the 2006 Edinburgh Festival. Some critics did dislike it as yet another example of modern-day cultural and artistic madness, but others welcomed its innovative approach to the creation of both dance and theatre art, and its attempt to find new choreographic idioms and ideas. As such, it has led the way for a proliferation of similar performances within the all-too-often exclusive world of theatre dance.

Bounce, the Swedish-based street-dance company, for instance, has just arrived in London with a dazzling adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, entitled Insane in the Brain, after the ‘appropriate’ lyrics of one of the songs they use. Not unlike Rumble’s Romeo, Bounce’s creation, which was also premièred in 2006, shows clearly the benefits of choreographic cross-fertilisation, injecting new blood, new life and, most of all, new ideas and possibilities into a performing art that is constantly criticised for failing to adapt to a changing world.

Although Ken Kesey’s celebrated 1962 novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, might not sound like an ideal subject for choreographic adaptation, Bounce has created a dramatically vibrant reading of Kesey’s narrative. Its 80-minute performance is theatrically captivating as well as visually enjoyable to the highest degree. Bounce’s choice of choreographic medium brings vividly to life the characters in the novel, demonstrating that street dance is an ideal style for portraying both the inner turmoil and the troubled nature of the psychiatric hospital’s patients. The first-night scene, with the patients dancing in canon-like sequence on their beds, is one of the best examples of theatre dance I have seen in years.

Not all the characters or narrative episodes benefit from this choreographic approach, though.