Review: Hannah Tasker-Poland’s The Most Naked is wonderfully unsettling

Hannah Tasker-Poland performed her show The Most Naked during the Right Royal Cabaret Festival this month.

The lights were low. There were sequins. There was a saxophonist. There were girls dancing in slinky, tight dresses, tossing their hair as they gave members of the audience come-hither looks.

Yet, this was not the strip show some audience members might have been expecting.

This was The Most Naked, a performance written, devised and performed by the incredibly talented Hannah Tasker-Poland, and it was a show like no other.

Throughout the evening Hannah took her audience on a wild ride, constantly telling them one thing, then taking them in a completely different direction.

“You want it,” she told them as she languidly lay across the piano.

Holding the microphone close to her mouth, she tells the audience exactly, and explicitly, what they want. This verbal tease is mainly spoken, but segues into bursts of song, then segues again into a loud, banshee-esque cacophony.

It’s disturbing yet hypnotic. You can’t take your eyes off her. Not now, and not at any point in this show, in which she moves across the stage as though she were made of mercury, dancing with such fluidity and grace it leaves you breathless, and then, just as quickly and fluidly, the movements change again. A jarring, jerky, robotic frenzy that again leaves you breathless.

Ironically, in reviewing a show about nakedness, the costuming is one of the stars of the night. There are plenty of boobs and genitalia to be seen throughout - just not, thanks to clever prosthetics, always where you expect. It’s weird, it’s odd, and it makes Hannah’s point perfectly - how society objectifies the female form, and why so many want to control it.

The perfect foil to all of Hannah’s precise wildness is Lucien Johnson, co-creator of the show and its saxophonist and pianist. Smartly dressed, he is the ever-calm presence on stage. The music he has created for the show is the perfect mix, moving through a gentle, cabaret style to jarring, angry and disjointed sections, matching Hannah’s movement and mood each time.

Excellent lighting and stage design also elevate this show to a whole new level. As Hannah talks about the witch trials, the lighting changes, along with the music, and the red backdrop of the stage takes on a new life. As Hannah twists, turns and moves, it feels as though there is actual fire on the stage, flames licking at her body.

As the show continues towards its climax, she is joined by two whirling dervishes, her fellow dancers, who also set the scene at the start of the night and serve as her assistants throughout, and the three women dance wildly across the stage, changing from a witch at the mercy of fire to an almost demonic being.

The show is unsettling, but it’s incredibly thoughtfully designed, making it a thought-provoking performance that will deliver a feminist history lesson in a powerful, meaningful and unique way.

The Details

What: Right Royal Cabaret Festival

When: June 22-25

Where: See www.rightroyal.co.nz for details