There are a lot of artists talking about illness at this year’s Edinburgh fringe. In the dance programme alone there are two shows about living with chronic pain, and this funny, angry and wistful one by Australian Liz Lea about a severe case of endometriosis that had her regularly necking 10 Nurofen before lunchtime.
Dancers make a living out of getting their bodies to behave and, as Lea tells us, by pushing the fine line between good pain and bad pain. Her pain tolerance was so high that her surgeon doubted she even needed the surgery (she really did) and compared cutting through her abdominal muscles to cutting through a brick wall – both are sources of misplaced pride in a body that was working against Lea and her dreams of having it all.
In a (mostly) one-woman show, Lea touches on time at boarding school and as a fishnetted showgirl, followed by bowel function, rectal pain and incontinence. “I don’t teach jetés in class any more,” she explains, “because I’ll land and wet myself.” But, at 52, her physical control is still strong, and Lea has a wealth of dance languages absorbed into her body: notably, details from south Asian dance that are skilfully folded into her solos.
The tone is sometimes hard to read; Red is full of smart lines and self-deprecation but with the feel of performing a script rather than sharing confidences – this is a woman still holding on to control – although she gets chattier in an updated coda that touches on free tampons and Scotland’s male period tsar. If Lea could give herself up to the messiness of it all and let the emotional (and drug-induced) highs and lows swell, a good show might be a great one.
Red is at Dance Base, Edinburgh, until 28 August.
