In HAUS of YOLO, New Zealand–based circus artists let their freak flags fly
The Dust Palace’s cabaret send-up stars a visionary fashion designer who sews costumes live onstage at The Cultch
HAUS of YOLO. Photo by Leonie Moreland
HAUS of YOLO. Photo by Leonie Moreland
The Cultch presents The Dust Palace’s HAUS of YOLO from June 5 to 15 at the York Theatre
COYLY CHARISMATIC, A LITTLE scary, and impossibly stylish: these are just a few of the descriptors one might attribute to Dr. Frank-N-Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, or Ursula from The Little Mermaid, or Yzma from The Emperor’s New Groove.
And if those three iconic villains were to converge into one character, you might just wind up with antagonist extraordinaire Welt Couture. The fictional fashion-label designer is the star of New Zealand circus-theatre company The Dust Palace’s HAUS of YOLO, an “anti-cabaret” cabaret in which the demanding Welt designs and sews costumes live onstage for his models, hilariously dubbed the Sexy Meat Puppets.
Four artists take turns playing Welt throughout the show by passing around a swanky jacket, embodying his persona when they put it on (think Jim Carrey in The Mask). During a Zoom call with Stir, HAUS of YOLO co-writers and cast members Lizzie Tollemache and Eve Gordon—who is also founding artistic director of The Dust Palace—say that Welt is a complete megalomaniac.
“He is my giant artistic temperament,” Tollemache says, “and very much that 20th-century kind of visionary creator which thankfully doesn’t exist as much anymore.”
“And doesn’t get given space,” Gordon chimes in.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Tollemache agrees enthusiastically. “That’s the kind if you reach a certain point, you can say whatever you want, you can do whatever you want. There are no consequences for your actions. And it’s quite fun to take that—which I think all of us that came up through those times were, you know, a little bit terrorized by—and absolutely rip the piss out of it as something that no longer holds sway and now is kind of a figure of fun. How ridiculous to be that screamy, shouty type of leadership.”
The artists are speaking from the coastal town of Kerikeri way up on New Zealand’s North Island, where they’ve just arrived for a HAUS of YOLO tour stop. The production appears in Vancouver from June 5 to 15, care of The Cultch.
Lizzie Tollemache taking a turn as Welt Couture in HAUS of YOLO. Photo by Leonie Moreland
HAUS of YOLO came to be several years ago when The Dust Palace was touring PULP, a dark, gritty circus show based on the story of Persephone. But when a performer who was integral to the execution of that piece suddenly up and left in favour of another gig, the company was left with two weeks to put together a cabaret instead. Gordon—who admits they ordinarily find cabarets “a little bit boring”—decided that a wild concept was needed to up the ante.
“There’s a bit of a cliché going around that I’m often on the side of the stage sewing the costumes, and then handing them to people as they enter the stage,” Gordon says of their Dust Palace track record. “So we were just like, ‘Put that onstage! Put the reality onstage.’”
During HAUS of YOLO’s 90-minute run, the performers sew 12 costumes total right in front of the audience, and each one is somehow whipped up in just a few minutes. Mind-blowing? Yes. Stressful? Also yes—especially for Tollemache, who learned how to sew from ground zero right before the show premiered.
“Just imagine a skill that you don’t have,” she says, “and then over two weeks, performing that skill live to a full audience, woven in amongst all the skills that you do have. It is a hell of a rush.”
Once each shimmery, rave-appropriate clothing article is sewn, it’s handed over to one of the Sexy Meat Puppets, who slips it on and dives right into a full-out circus number with aerial tricks and acrobatic feats.
So have the performers faced any wardrobe malfunctions yet?
“Hell yeah, we have!” Gordon says.
“You say that as if, like, it’s surely only happened once,” Tollemache adds with a laugh. The artists say they roll with the punches at this point. A dancer might rip open the hem of the dress they’re wearing to allow their full range of motion back, or tie a pair of pants onto their body if they weren’t finished fast enough. It’s all about vision—a shirt in shambles can easily become a gaudy bracelet. Anything is possible in the world of Welt Couture. And as Tollemache puts it, HAUS of YOLO doesn’t shy away from letting its “big, loud, sexy freak flag” fly.
HAUS of YOLO. Photo by Leonie Moreland
One thing that circus and sewing have in common, Gordon notes, is perceived risk.
“Most people have had the experience of using a sewing machine, but not most people have had the experience of doing circus,” the performing-arts veteran says. “And the experience of sewing, for lots of people, is really anxiety-inducing. It’s terrifying, you know? We’re all worried about the needle or messing it up. So the combination of the sewing and the circus kind of brings that conversation of risk—and of like, ‘What would I be doing in that situation?’ or ‘How would I be responding in that situation?’—and makes it really real for the audience.”
The whole output is tightly choreographed and takes a great deal of precision to execute. “There is no switching off,” Tollemache says. “You cannot get complacent for a second. You are completely alive and focused the entire show, which is a real endurance event.”
Tollemache played an integral role in fleshing out a narrative for the piece. She describes HAUS of YOLO as a “microcosm of neoliberalism”, with its speed-sewing and flashy materials parodying the fast-fashion industry. Welt exploits the labour of his compliant Sexy Meat Puppets, driving them to come up with the next trendy item and pump out products faster, with little sensitivity or care for their well-being. (Mugatu from Zoolander, anyone?) Eventually, the models begin to make choices for themselves and develop creative flair of their own.
Despite that serious thread, some of the show’s fashion and pop-culture influences are also endearing. Explains Tollemache: “Anyone that grew up kind of being drawn in or delighted or excited by that high-camp, high-couture fashion world—so anyone that watched The Devil Wears Prada or, like, YouTubed runway shows, or had a stack of their mum or their auntie’s copies of Vogue—anyone who was drawn to that world in some way when they were growing up will just feel so embraced, you know?”
And of course, HAUS of YOLO still delivers all the wow-factor circus tricks that audiences have come to know and love from The Dust Palace in shows like Goblin Market, The WonderWombs, and the powerful, Māori culture–steeped Te Tangi a te Tūī.
“There’s a fair whack of queer joy throughout this whole thing,” Tollemache says. “Although it’s a parody and it’s having a go at fast fashion, and although there’s a villain, it’s done with a lightness of touch, I think, and with a real gleeful energy throughout the whole thing. And I think that’s important, because that feels a bit like its own type of rebellion at the moment.”
So here’s to subverting style norms and letting our freak flags fly. 
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