Bottoms Premieres at DI Glasgow: Reclaiming the Can-Can

Bottoms Up: Two Destination Language Reclaim the Can-Can at Dance International Glasgow

What do we do with a dance that has been choreographed into obedience? For Katherina Radeva and Alister Lownie of Two Destination Language, the answer lies not in nostalgia but in disruption. In Bottoms, premiering 14–15 May at Tramway as part of Dance International Glasgow, the duo confront the legacy of the can-can with irreverence, joy, and a deeply political edge.

A Kick Against Conformity

The can-can’s popular image – gleaming legs in unison, neatly kicking to the pulse of cabaret – is a far cry from its 19th-century origins. Originally a boisterous form of street protest and bodily liberation, it has become a spectacle of sameness. For Radeva and Lownie, that tension is precisely the point of entry.

“The tightly choreographed spectacle is something that a part of me loves,” they say, “but another part is deeply suspicious of. It’s too controlled, too orderly – and the case of cabaret-style cancan it’s objectifying the dancers. At the same time, there’s something deeply satisfying about spectacle and unison movement, and about the discipline and training it takes to perform the traditional cancan. That conflicting set of feelings led us to deconstruct the dancehall tradition and twist it into explorations of what we could make from its choreographic ingredients.”

In Bottoms, structure and subversion are placed in dynamic tension. The kick becomes not a punctuation of uniformity but a disruption of it – a reminder that choreography can be a tool for questioning, not just performing.

“The tightly choreographed spectacle is something that a part of me loves,” they say, “but another part is deeply suspicious of. It’s too controlled, too orderly—and the case of cabaret-style cancan it’s objectifying the dancers.”

– Radeva and Lownie

Reclaiming the Roots

The can-can emerged from the industrial turmoil. Workers, burdened by the mechanisation of their lives, turned to dance as release. That rebellious movement has, over the years, been absorbed into capitalism’s machinery, stripped of its edge and sold as spectacle.

Bottoms seeks to reconnect with the dance’s original unruliness. It resists polish and perfection in favour of difference, risk, and surprise.

“Unlike the criteria for auditioning at the Moulin Rouge, which help achieve a uniformity that supports their style of work, we have chosen to work with performers who are different sizes and come from different performance backgrounds,” Radeva and Lownie explain. “This excites us: it hopefully lets audience members too delight in this and enjoy what each person on stage brings. We are interested in different bodies taking space and as a company we have always been interested in making space for differences to co-exist, to share the same stage.”

The effect is striking: a can-can that challenges rather than conforms, a chorus line that kicks at the very idea of a chorus line.

Casting as Politics

It’s not just about inclusion, it’s about refusal. Refusal to let dance remain the province of certain body types or professional training regimes. Refusal to equate aesthetic cohesion with value. And refusal to repackage dissent as elegance.

“Unlike the criteria for auditioning at the Moulin Rouge… we have chosen to work with performers who are different sizes and come from different performance backgrounds.”

– Radeva and Lownie

“In doing that, yes, we’re resisting the idealised femininity of the dance hall, and the version of it which continues in those cabaret dinner shows,” say Radeva and Lownie. “In reclaiming the dance for ourselves, taking a playfully sceptical approach to its history as sexualised display, we’re establishing a space for different values.”

This resistance is not didactic. It’s celebratory. Bottoms is not only a critique but an invitation: to laugh, to move, to take up space.

Labour in the Spotlight

So often in performance, the work is invisible. Audiences see the result, never the sweat. Bottoms changes that, offering a glimpse into the processes and people behind the production.

“Well, how artistic labour is valued can be its own PhD thesis,” they reflect, “but in Bottoms, of course we work hard in lots of ways. There’s time spent on developing the creative ideas. There’s time spent by each person on stage in developing skills and experience as a performer. There’s time designing and making the costumes, in sourcing the set. There’s the rehearsal process. And then eventually there’s the moment in front of an audience: the work of performing itself.”

“All that artistic labour is tied to emotional labour: how each person involved responds to the themes and the care they put into working together. Ultimately, though, while the audience may be interested in questions that labour provokes, they also want to have a good time. They want to feel looked after. They’re experiencing only the outcome of that labour, and traditionally the rest is hidden away (or reserved for interviews). With this show, we’re revealing some of that labour and more directly dealing with how it’s valued.”

“In reclaiming the dance for ourselves… we’re establishing a space for different values.”

– Radeva and Lownie

What Bottoms makes visible is not just effort – it’s care. Care for each other, for the form, for the audience.

Finding Joy in the Ruins

Bottoms is a refuge, but not a retreat. It’s a space of joy, yes: but a joy that’s defiant, not delusional.

“We are offering some joy – but if we’re in need of a refuge, we’re going to need more than crisps and cava to sustain the labour of remaking ourselves and our society for a better future,” they say. “For us, it’s the place of art to reflect aspects of our world so that we can see them better or differently. It’s not our job as artists to answer the political problems of today. We are here for the dialogue.”

**The cast of *Bottoms(not in order):* Nicki Hobday, Rachel Krische, Craig Manson, Sita Pieraccini** & **Katherina Radeva**

The can-can becomes a strategy for staying human in dehumanising times. A way to make noise, take up space, and reclaim the right to delight.

An Ensemble of Difference

The collaborative nature of the project extends from the casting to the movement vocabulary itself.

“The themes, and the choice of cancan to explore them, came from the framework which we brought to rehearsals,” Radeva and Lownie explain. “Using that, we’ve all worked together to explore the form of the cancan, and how its parts work (or don’t) for each of us, what’s interesting about them and how we can play with those elements. The process involved lots of filming rehearsal and watching ourselves back, reflecting on what we’d done together, what felt right for this group of people.”

In this way, Bottoms is not only a choreographed show. It’s a collective expression.

Dancing Through Crisis

In its historical moment, the can-can gave voice, leg, shout, and rhythm to a working class under pressure. Today, Radeva and Lownie see similar fractures in our own systems.

“There seem to be lots of questions at the moment about what work is and what it could be. We see it in discussions about working from home or in offices. It’s in debates about how invested a person should be in the company they work for, and how much of themselves to give to a job. In reports about the divides between generations in their approach to work. There’s a cultural shift underway that’s resistant to the values of 20th century capitalism—but it’s not clear what’s replacing those.”

“At the same time, there’s huge disruption to financial and political systems, little action on the climate emergency, the implications of AI are unclear.”

That uncertainty isn’t new. It echoes the world from which the can-can first emerged. Bottoms isn’t just responding to crisis – it’s pushing crisis into motion.

Joy as a Radical Force

“Joy has become a part of the picture in our performance making because we feel that we need to offset the news and the precarious reality in which we live,” they say. “Joy is a way of resisting drudgery, refusing to allow the system (political, social, education, arts funding—whatever is appropriate) to break us. It’s reclaiming the ability to play with the social concepts which structure so much of our lives.”

“We are offering some joy—but if we’re in need of a refuge, we’re going to need more than crisps and cava to sustain the labour of remaking ourselves and our society for a better future.”

– Radeva and Lownie

“It’s not always easy, but finding joy and sharing it with others is a way of feeding resistance, nourishing hope, and building community. Art can change how people view themselves and the world around them, shifting their identities. The show is part of that.”

In a world that demands seriousness, joy is Two Destination Language’s preferred mode of rebellion.

Future Moves

As they look ahead, Radeva and Lownie are guided less by destination and more by inquiry.

“We don’t necessarily make work in a singular trajectory, because different artforms excite us and because often the way we make work is content driven, and then we find the form (and collaborators) that we feel will be most interesting to frame the ideas.

We’re interested in questions about who is valued and why. About what work is valued and why. About who makes those decisions, and what values lie beneath. About how we, and the audience, value art. That all relates also to questions about the place of work in our lives, and what we want from those lives. What kind of future do we want to build together, and how can we start to do that?“

That future will begin when Bottoms hits the road – so if you’d like to be part of Two Destination Language’s next steps, you know where to be.

“We’ll be interested to see what answers emerge once we begin to meet audiences with the show and hear their points of view.”