INTERVIEW: Under the Radar opens with ‘The Rest of Our Lives’
Photo: Jo Fong and George Orange perform in The Rest of Our Lives. Photo courtesy of Sara Teresa / Provided by press rep with permission.
The Under the Radar festival kicks off this week, and one of the most anticipated entries is The Rest of Our Lives, a performance piece crafted by contemporary dancer Jo Fong and circus performer George Orange. The two have been touring this show around the world since 2019, and now it’s time for New Yorkers to check out the unique piece.
Orange keeps track of every time they tour the piece, and he said that when they host their first NYC performance at La MaMa’s Downstairs Theater tonight, Jan. 7, they will have done the show 89 times. Fong cannot wait to share the experience with those in the city.
“I like the energy here,” Fong said in a joint interview after many hours of rehearsal. “I said to George the other day, ‘I like the music of New York, and it feels like the music goes up, up, up.’ … Whenever we do a new place, it’s always strange … because people laugh at different things, don’t they.”
She added: “Firstly I’d like an audience that turns up. That’d be great, and then secondly, I’d like to meet them. … I’d just like to be with them.”
Fong said the show works on many levels. The Rest of Our Lives is a 90-minute exercise in trying to process and contextualize the act of aging. They use dance, theater, circus and games to celebrate life and try to understand one’s “random decline,” as a description of the show indicates. The experience is an acknowledgement that “the struggle is real,” and that the two performers, like many of the audience members, have reached the “beginning of the end.”
“What I like about this show is that it’s good for all people, and I like the mix of everybody,” said Fong, who took the show with Orange to Indonesia, Vietnam and the United Kingdom. “This is not a good advert because it sounds like they’ve got to do loads of stuff, but they don’t. They just have to turn up, and me and George do everything.”
Orange said that the show came from a discussion of serious issues — mortality, chief among them — but they found joy as they explored the topic.
“It was what we needed,” he said. “I’m a circus performer. I come from a circus background, and Jo comes from contemporary dance. … The whole point of our art forms is to push your body to this crazy place where no one else is going, but you learn to do it over and over again in a live context. And then I was turning 54 or 53 or something, and Jo was looking at 50. We were like, how do we keep going? That was the question that we came to each other with. This is our art form, but how do we keep doing it? … I was getting to a place where I was breaking stuff. I broke two ribs, my arm, my nose — all at different times. … And my dog died, broke his back and died, and my performing partner was dying of breast cancer. So it was all like, what? How do you just go on?”
Fong added: “How do you keep the spirit?”
Orange said: “And then somehow we came up with this show that kind of answered it. We came up with this in 2019, and we’ve been doing it for six years now.”
Fong said performing The Rest of Our Lives gives her a lot of energy. She’s 54 now, and Orange is 58. And finding that energy is a key part of their personal and professional lives. “I saw a physio today, and I was saying, ‘Since I was 30, I was preparing for the end of my dance career,'” she said. “And everything since 30 has been a bonus. … We get to have adventures, and that’s what I love. I like the touching of the audience and that they feel it. They feel the show.”
Orange added: “They see themselves.”
Fong agreed: “It’s like medicine really.”
Orange concluded: “Our hope is that people will see themselves continuing.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / JohnHollywoodSoapbox.com
The Rest of Our Lives, created and performed by Jo Fong and George Orange, plays the Under the Radar festival Jan. 7-17 at La MaMa’s Downstairs Theater in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
