• 
• 
• 

Lara Fischel-Chisholm is a dancer and actor who choreographs, co-produces, co-directs and stars in Terror Planet, a sci-fi comedy dance thriller, opening this week in Auckland.  And she’s doing all of this while eight months pregnant. Renee Liang caught up with her.

* * *

Terror Planet is quite possibly NZ’s first sci-fi comedy dance thriller. Conceived by dancer and actor Lara Fischel-Chisholm and actor, director, playwright (and obviously secret dancer) Tom Sainsbury, Terror Planet tells of a nightmarish vision of the future where women work day and night in factories, men are obsolete and robots are about to take over the world. Sounds crazy? There’s a twist. Lara is eight months pregnant and opens the show two weeks before her due date, as well as co-producing, co-directing and choreographing the show. There’s no guarantee she’ll make it through the season. Renee Liang caught up with her, ahead of any contractions.

What has been your journey into theatre and dance? What shows or people (if any) have changed the path you took?

I spent my childhood doing ballet and modern dance lessons, speech and drama, school shows, operas, ballets and countless living room performances in which I bossed around friends, cousins and my brother. I still do pretty similar things as an adult... although my fee has gone up. I trained as an actor at UNITEC School of Performing and Screen Arts and did a post grad course in Acting Shakespeare the following year at RADA in London.

I thought I had given up dancing in my late teens but it's in the bones and I can't shake it. It was burlesque that bought me back to the stage as a dancer and over the last four years I've enjoyed dancing as Holly Day alongside the ever-glamorous Leda Petit who never fails to have a project up her sleeve, or perhaps down her delicately feathered glove. Leda is incredibly supportive and a driving force in the industry. Working with Mary Jane O'Reilly on her fabulous creation In Flagrante has been a real highlight recently and the experience gave me a renewed confidence in what I have to offer as both an actor and dancer - and in a way, how I can use both of those things together.

My very first foray into comedy dance was a duo called Dance Equation - we made one dance which enjoyed some brief success and I guess that concept had been sitting idly for a few years until Tom Sainsbury, Jennie Robertson and I came up with the idea for Terror Island which we performed in October last year. I have worked with Tom as an actor on numerous occasions and he brings this infectious kind of joy to his work which I really respond to.

Two other theatre experiences that have influenced me over the last few years are performing Providence by Louise Tu'u and working on Cowboy Mouth/Love It Up with Nisha Madhan. The process of rehearsing Providence was completely different to anything I had ever worked on but it was also incredibly liberating as a performer to trust Louise and shake off any pre-conceived ideas of what I should be doing. Likewise, working with Nisha - it's all about playing the game honestly and whole heartedly until you exhaust all possibilities... and then you keep going - just to see what happens. Again, in both circumstances there is a very real joy at the heart of the thing that I find so compelling as a performer. I was lucky enough to choreograph The Wet Hot Beauties for the Fringe Festival sell-out Swan Song this year and that was an incredibly huge learning experience as I had never choreographed for 60 people before, and certainly not in water. That experience gave me new ideas about my role as both performer and theatre-maker.

How did you and Tom dream up this show?

Tom, Jennie and I share a love of dancing and a penchant for the ridiculous. We wanted to tell a narrative story entirely though dance - I guess like an idiot’s ballet. We also wanted our own dance troupe. So DYNAMOTION was born and Terror Island was our first offering. We had considered bringing the show back this year but with me being pregnant and Jennie off traveling the world, Tom and I decided it would be perhaps more fun to make Terror Planet instead. Tom had this Albert Einstein quote kicking around in his head and I was desperate to have robots and so we started from there. If Terror Island was a homage to the B-grade thriller then Terror Planet would be the same for the sci-fi action genre.

What are your favourite B-Grade action movies and which were inspirational?

I'm going to cheat here because Terminator 2: Judgement Day is clearly not B-grade but it is one of my favourite films ever - it immediately takes me back to being 10 years old and a little bit in love with Edward Furlong and the way his husky little voice breaks when he yells, wanting to be Sarah Conor and I'm actually still scared of the bad Terminator as an adult. It's just such a great film. The 90's seemed packed with action films and I guess that one stands out the most for me. In terms of what Tom and I love about B-grade films is that they're so earnest yet still a little bit shit - it really appeals to our sense of humour and the potential for how that can translate to the stage is really great.

How did you and Tom work together to make this show?  How does Tom work with a show that's mostly wordless, given his well-recognised talent for dialogue?

Now that we're onto our second instalment of these shows we have a natural flow of devising and choreographing together. A lot of time is spent discussing music and finding the right songs to tell the story - then counting through everything and developing a structure for each dance. We trawl Youtube for gems that we can adapt and/or borrow although what emerges is always a unique response to those inspirations. 

Being a writer, Tom is also really plot driven which is obviously key in what we're trying to achieve with the show. He also creates great characters - the absence of dialogue doesn't seem to faze him at all. I can apply some technique to the process. This time round I have the luxury/limitation of being less mobile than I was for Terror Island but it does mean that I can tighten and polish everyone from a dance perspective. The bar has certainly shifted this time around too which is really exciting.

(if I may get a bit personal now) How do you cope with the physical demands of pregnancy while working as a dancer?

Each week I get more limited in my movement which has been an interesting and often frustrating challenge although I'm doing my best to embrace it. I'm lucky in that I have been teaching dance throughout my pregnancy so was doing a lot of that kind of movement anyway (my students must have felt like they were watching a very slowly inflating balloon). I think if I hadn't been teaching then I would have found the work for Terror Planet much more difficult. I would be lying if I said I wasn't tired and each night I do come home walking like an old arthritic lady but it also feels good to be working and right from the start I wanted to do a show being pregnant. I actually found out I was pregnant on the closing night of Terror Island so it's fitting that I should spend the last couple of weeks of my pregnancy doing Terror Planet. I expect I'm going to have to do a lot of bouncing around with my baby when she arrives...

Does being pregnant affect the way you create (in terms of subject and theme?)

Both Tom and I saw the comedic possibilities of having a hugely pregnant person in the cast straight away and it did certainly influence some of the plot line. Initially I was going to play the lead role in the show which has now been handed over to the wonderful Kate Barnett. Tom and I had already crafted much of the story around this big belly of mine before we decided that it might be wise to hand the role over to someone who wasn't in danger of going into labour mid-season! We absolutely made the right decision and Kate has made the character her own. Physically, it has also been something of a relief for me!

Are you working on anything next, or just taking things as they come?

I have a couple of projects in the pipeline. Nisha Madhan is making another show that I'm in called Lies and I think I'll be teaming up with The Wet Hot Beauties again too. I guess first and foremost I have this mum thing to figure out!