Reviewed onFriday June 24
For your consideration: pop music as the ultimate form of escapism. On this particular Friday, most people living in the outside world are shrouded by a cloud of negativity and uncertainty – every thing from Brexit to Fall Out Boy’s song for the Ghostbusters movie has people downright pissed. Venture out to the mile-wide smile leading into Luna Park, however, and you’ll see something different entirely. We’re not just talking the stilt-walkers or the various rides about the place. Down the way, up the other end of the park where the Big Top resides, is a world of people locked into their own private universe. A world of blinding colour, friendly monsters, cute fashion and hyper-surrealistic characters. A world that, as the security guards report, some of these creatures have been inhabiting since before the park even opened today. The line snakes its way out to the dock – it’s a mix of pandemonium and pure, unadulterated joy.
The cause? The artist known in Romaji Japanese as Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. It was two years ago that the sprightly starlet caused a similar stir over at UNSW Roundhouse – a moment made even funnier by the fact that venue is a space normally inhabited by gaunt, self-serious heavy bands – and the intervening years have only seen the young woman born Kiriko Takemura grow even more powerful in the westward-expanding J-pop scene.
From the minute the lights go out and the lady of the hour – flagged by four wildly energetic backup dancers and a DJ in some sort of plant-like morphsuit – emerges in a shimmering aura, there’s no escaping. Then again, absolutely no-one in this room is worried about that – this is exactly where they want to be. For the next 90 minutes, all they will see, hear and feel is all on KPP’s watch. She leads clap-alongs and choreographed hand movements, and takes in every last rapturous applause with poise and grace.
This is a show that is chiselled down and refined to the very last movement, and it’s enthralling for young and old – quite literally, too, as children dance alongside the big kids with exuberance. Politics? They can wait. There are fashion monsters to chase and pon-pons to way-way-way. Don’t get it? Perhaps you never will.
