Nude show where naked dancers sit in lap of audience to spearhead Birmingham International Dance Festival

Nov 20 2011 by Ben Goldby, Sunday Mercury

A NAKED theatre show in which nude performers clamber onto the laps of the audience has been chosen as one of the headline attractions at Birmingham’s international dance festival.

Un Peu De Tendresse Bordel De Merde – French for ‘a little tenderness for crying out loud’ – is being staged at Warwick Arts Centre for three nights, and is supported by taxpayers’ money.

The controversial production is the brainchild of Canadian choreographer Dave St-Pierre, and features up to 20 naked men and women cavorting on stage.

But members of the audience are treated to some bare-faced cheek at the beginning of the show, as nude dancers climb over their heads and end up sitting in the lap of shocked punters.

When it was presented at London’s famous Sadlers Wells theatre earlier this year, a number of people walked out in disgust.

The production is being staged next April as part of International Dance Festival Birmingham 2012, a month-long cultural event that has received £310,000 from Birmingham City Council and a further £118,000 from Advantage West Midlands.

Furious campaigners last night blasted the play as a waste of taxpayers’ cash.

Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “It’s ridiculous that taxpayers are being made to pay for naked dancers to flail about and sit on peoples’ laps. There are private clubs for that sort of thing.

“People in Birmingham will wonder just how their council can plead poverty when it is able to fund a publicity-seeking gimmick like this performance.”