Review: Femmes du Feu’s “In the Fire” Brings Familial Warmth and Sweltering Heat
Much like firefighting itself, conveying aspects of one’s life to an audience requires a certain kind of mettle. In In the Fire, Holly Treddenick manages to do just that. From the stands of its late October run, reviewer Jackie Houghton walks us through the show’s emotional journey.
Sometimes you see a show that is so personal to the performer’s experience that it is difficult to connect with it. You can enjoy the actual performance, but the visceral, personal meaningfulness of the story may be lost on you.In the Fire, a solo aerial/dance act performed by Holly Treddenick of Femmes du Feu Creations, is a show about Holly’s father. It is about her. It is about trauma. It is about fire. It is a show that connects with its audience deeply.
The first time I sawIn the Firewas at the Toronto Rhubarb Festival in 2019. It was an early work-in-progress showing, lasting about 20 minutes. That performance brought me to tears. Admittedly, I have some childhood trauma related to fire. My father was badly burned in an industrial explosion when I was 11 years old. He spent weeks in hospital recovering. I know the pain that fire can cause. But this show does something that many don’t want to see or consider. It exposes the pain of the people on the other side of the fire—the men and women that fight the fires and the emotional toll of their work. The impact it has on their families.
In the years since that 2019 preview,In the Firehas grown from a one-woman show to include an eight-member choir, the Opus 8. Touted as “eight of Toronto’s finest ensemble singers,” the Opus 8 enters the stage of the Bank Art House in Welland, Ontario, amongst the smell and crackling of fire and a rolling, low-lying “smoke.” Their solemn song fills the stage as the smoke floats amongst a plethora of invented and traditional apparatuses: a turnout coat on a pipe, a rope loop, a brass pole, a rigged fire hose, and an aerial ladder. Shrouded in a smoke cape created by costume designer Sara Torrie, Holly enters, mimicking the smoke and fire itself with her dance before doffing her cape and traveling back in time to her childhood in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
One of the most touching scenes in the show has nothing to do with technique, finesse, or training. It is a simple dance. One that you might see anywhere. Holly dances on top of a pair of fire boots attached to pants and suspenders that she has slipped over her shoulders, a young girl dancing on her father’s feet. It’s reminiscent of a time in life when she might have waved goodbye as dad headed off to work, not fully grasping the gravity of his job. When we next see the boots, pants, and suspenders, the graveness of the job and the emotional and physical toll it takes on the person wearing them is more than evident. This time, Holly puts on the gear and then sheds it. She puts it on and then sheds it again. It’s continuous. Thirty-seven years—that’s how long her father was a firefighter. By the end of it, she’s sweating, her breathing heavy; each movement looks more difficult, more painful. She stumbles, she falls. It’s a raw moment. Like an exposed burn. Painful.
Each apparatus holds a place in this show. The quality of movement and the versatility of Holly’s performance on each apparatus speaks to a lifetime of dedication and commitment to her craft as a dancer, aerialist, and performer. This show certainly feels like more than a dance or contemporary circus show. Director Monica Dottor, along with dramaturg Angola Murdoch and the rest of the creative team, has pulled more than just movement out of Holly as a performer. There is no holding back in her. In every gesture and expression, there is joy and lightness as much as there is pain and darkness. It is a truly theatrical show, in addition to a skilled dance and aerial performance.
The common thread that weaves the fabric ofIn the Fire is George Albert Treddenick. You will know his name by the end of the evening if you see this show; it has been made into a song titledGAT, composed by John Gzowski, with lyrics by Holly herself.George’s Song, transcribed from an actual story that George told Holly in one of the many conversations that occurred during the development of this show, hits a deep nerve. Through lyrics sung in beautiful four-part harmony by the choir, he confides in us how he made it through his career as a first responder: you do the best you can; you get on with it; you can’t have regrets. As an audience member, it leaves you questioning, is that even possible?
George was in the audience this evening and it was the first time he had seen Holly perform the piece. Holly includes him in all of the performances, but usually by phone. Tonight was different; he was there. Proud. Moved. A father. A daughter. An homage to a lifetime of sacrifice. It’s rare that you get to pay tribute to someone in life. This show is able to do that. And it’s beautiful.
Main image features Holly Treddenick and the Opus 8. Image taken by the author.
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