THEATRE REVIEW: SKIN ★★★

Skin
Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham
Tuesday 18th September

Award Winning 201 Dance Company return following their critically acclaimed Smother, which enjoyed huge success at The Edinburgh Fringe, to bring SKIN, a story of not feeling comfortable in your own body, on a tour of the UK. Thought-provoking, impactful and leaving the theatre unable to let the emotions flowing from the stage leave your state of mind, SKIN was a triumph of the highest scale of dance I have ever had the chance of witnessing.

In the younger generation now more than ever, the topic around sexuality and body identification is thriving and being talked about in education, making SKIN a show that has a lot to tread carefully on as so much has to be taken into account and fitted in around the other notion that the company use none or little dialogue in their pieces, but I was astonished by the sheer detail of this matter in the storytelling of this female uncomfortable in the way they dressed, walked and interacted with peers on stage; we delve through their life, right from the very beginning of childhood, to the relationship they shared with their mother, how others perceived the individual, before coming back to the present, and throughout I was captivated, heightened by the organic sounds and lighting, which in places made the performers trapped in the space as an echo and thread running through their character arcs.

Overall, 201 Dance Company captured beautifully the story of someone feeling both physically and emotionally lost in their body and presented a driven piece of theatre which should be admired by those far and wide.