SG2015 Review: Beauty and the Beast

Venue (22): Dance Base

Category: Dance
Times: times vary
Dates: till Aug 30th (not 24th)
Stars: ****
Reviewed by Tony Challis

This Manchester based all male dance group, Company Chameleon, here take a subversive look at male group dynamics. There are the guys dancing in a balletic style, but when the rest of the gang come in swift change, conformity and they become football supporters. There are serious points made about group pressures, but with a good deal of humour and lightness of touch.

These are an extremely talented bunch of performers, and each of the five are seen to great advantage at different parts of the show as well as together. There is one point at which a dancer corkscrews horizontally into the arms of a fellow dancer, who absorbs the impact without flinching, and which can only be the cause of a whispered, wow.

One thing disturbs me, and that is the use of speech in the show. It does convey what is felt directly, and it is well expressed, but- these guys are primarily dancers, they are wonderfully skilful at that, and the show is fairly short. More than a very little speech seems to me to break the flow of a dance piece.
That should not put anyone off seeing this superb show, which not only has things to say about men in groups, and is very witty and engaging, but is also a display of top-rate dance skills.

SG2015 Review: Discoteque Machine

Venue (82): Zoo Southside

Category: Dance
Times: 9:45pm
Dates: till Aug 31st
Stars: ****
Reviewed by Martin Miller

So full warning audience participation is essential. There is quite literally no show if the audience don’t join in, so make sure you are the type of person who has no issue dancing under a spotlight and this will be right up your street. Oh and you’re probably going to want to bring a super competitive buddy like I did.. you know so you can kick their ass on a dance off (hi Dave, good attempt but not good enough eh!)

So my gloating aside, this is a strange and fun little show involving a handful of sexy dancers all in tightly clad lycra-morph suits. Suits so tight you can see what they had for dinner….mainly meat and potatoes… they are aliens who have landed on Earth (I’m guessing as it’s never fully explored) and are here to dance and make the audience dance away their shyness. Actually the shows concept is its weakest point but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a damn good time.

With six rounds and over fifty remixed tracks audience members are invited to onto landing pads and compete in lots of fun dancing challenges (some far more successful in concept than others) to nearly every conceivable genre of music. The challenges involve copying the aliens, having to make your own routines and dancing with other audience members.

It’s fun and high energy, it surprises and delights with its endless invention. Michael Jackson zombie morph dance routine was an hilarious highlight, but it’s not a perfect show. There needs to be better instructions for the crowd, who were eager but often confused as to what they are to do next and their needs to be more balanced number of challenges in each round as some were far more involving than others.

But by the final moment when the entire crowd are hauled onto the stage to Queen’s, ‘Don’t stop me’ now you’ll be smiling away and having far too much a good time to focus on any negatives in the show.

SG2015 Review: Sylvie Guillem – Life in Progress

Venue (): Festival Theatre (Edinburgh International Festival)

Category: Dance
Times: 7.30om
Dates: until Aug 10
Stars: *****
Reviewed by Mary Woodward

Lets be honest here: I am not a ballet or dance expert, but when I heard that Sylvie Guillem was coming to the EIF, I simply had to see her. She is legendary the youngest person ever to be granted the status of Étiole at the Paris Opéra Ballet at the age of 19, star of the Royal Ballet, heaped with honours, many ballets created round and for her who wouldnt want to be there to see her farewell performance?

We were offered four dance pieces, three written especially for her not for Ms Guillem the trotting out of classical showpieces for which she was famous, but a constant challenge and extension of her abilities, which seem unlimited. Techné was a constant flow of movement in which her body seemed almost liquid, flowing from one shape to another in ways that seemed impossible but for the evidence of ones eyes. DUO2105 gave us two male dancers interactions, reactions, and separations, mirroring each others movements and striking off on their own, co-operating, competing, and finally coming back to unison and stasis. Here and After again brought Ms Guillem to the stage, this time with Emanuela Montanari, more poetry in motion in dappled light and shade.

Finally we saw Sylvie by herself in Bye: in the choreographer Mats Eks words, a woman enters a room. After a while she is ready to leave it. are the bald outline of a piece which gave us everything that is dance joy, brilliance, invention, grace, poise, elegance and the sheer exuberance of being able to give the gift of love and delight to us, the audience: a fitting close to an outstanding career.

There was a standing ovation, not simply for the performance, but for the life and gift of a very special dancer.

SG2015 Review: Hey! I’m Alive

Venue (): Dance Base Grassmarket

Category: Dance
Times: 13:00-17-00
Dates: 17th-20th Aug
Stars: *****
Reviewed by Brett Herriot

Hey, Im alive is a late addition to the Fringe at Dance Base in the Grassmarket and its not featured in the official fringe guide but sometimes the most unique and enriching theatrical experiences are the ones that are hidden and sparkle the brightest.
The critically acclaimed and award winning Creative Electric have revived their 2014 production and brought it to fringe with a twist, while the original production performed at the Arches in Glasgow was 30 minutes in duration, it has now been extended to a endurance format of 4 hours. Dont worry you dont actually have to stay for the full four hours.
Hey! Im Alive has been developed by Creative Electric and Edinburgh based Actor, Artist and Drag performer Jordan McKinley who is a sufferer of Cystic Fibrosis in collaboration with his family, friends, medical team and The Cystic Fibrosis Trust.
Cystic Fibrosis is a genetic condition which effects the lungs primarily but also other organs and reduces the life expectance of a sufferer living in the developed world to somewhere between 35 and 50 years of age. One of the most startling things is that its recommended that those with the condition should not meet each other due to the higher risk of infection it is that fact which is the starting point for Hey Im Alive.
Placing the actors in giant Zorbs to provide a plastic barrier we are then set off on a journey to explore the isolation, loneliness and Fear alongside the hopes and dreams of someone who does have CF.
It truly is a voyage of discovery that runs the gamut of human emotion. To live with a condition that defines your life and puts into focus the small things like being able to have breakfast without throwing up, is sobering and attitude adjusting thing to watch. It truly moves the audience from smiles to tears and back again.
The idea of the performance is talented performers Nicholas Alban, William Stringer, Lewis Watson and McKinley himself enter the Zorbs and through physical expression put across the frustration, fear, anger and hope that all of us feel but is far more intensified given the circumstances.
The audience are able to interact with the performers and the zorbs changing the dynamic of each performance. The audience can also leave and return to the performance at any point during the four hour block.
There is also a recorded sound scape which details McKinleys journey in detail. This is not so much a performance that one watches but simply experiences, and you are left truly humbled and awed by the strength of character in McKinley as his writings and blogs are laid bare.
He has opened his heart and allowed us into his world, one which ultimately is not filled completely with fear but with hope for a brighter future, McKinley and indeed all those with CF need more understanding by others as to what they are living with but ultimately life is for living and together we must all embrace the future together.
Thank you Jordan and Creative Electric for truly showing the power of theatre to get a real story across, the experience in the gardens of dance base will live in the memory forever and if you get the chance before the production closes get along and experience it for yourself and truly be forever changed.

SG2015 Review: Alba Flamenca

Venue (): East Crosscauseway

Category: Dance
Times: 8:00pm
Dates: til Aug 31st
Stars: ****
Reviewed by Mary Woodward

Alba Flamenca are based in Edinburgh and perform and teach flamenco all year round: for the Fringe they give nightly performances of this art form in their small and intimate venue. No previous experience of flamenco is expected but no real explanation or introduction is given, apart from the naming of each particular dance form.

I am so ignorant of flamenco I was not even aware that there are different dance forms within it: but this didnt stop me having an exhilarating time! Two singers, two dancers, a guy who played tea chest were joined by a staggeringly talented guitarist who continued to impress even without his D string, which broke in the middle of one of his explosive firework displays. Cascades of notes and rhythmic slaps and taps intertwine with the singers voices and the dancers feet in a glorious and dramatic flood of passion and intensity.

Flamenco has a language of gesture and rhythm which is unknown to me, but neither that nor a lack of Spanish to understand the songs prevent enjoyment and appreciation of the impressive skills displayed here. Proud women almost aggressively challenge the audience with their strong gestures, poses, rhythmic stamping, and sinuous and expressive dancing; the singers pour out a flood of intense emotion, and the audience responds with cheers and shouts of appreciation.

The final number in which each of the performers in turn, including the previously silent and intent tea chest player, light up the stage with a joyous celebration of their art form, was greeted with laughter and applause and sent us dancing out into the Edinburgh night.

SG2014 Review: Swing

Venue (22): Dance Base

Category: Dance
Times: Aug 12-24
Dates: 7:30pm
Stars: ****
Reviewed by RM Ballantyne

At a time when so many shows on the Fringe even the comedies can leave you cringinging at our failures as human beings, heres a new show from Ireland that embraces us all in a lovin Swing dance.
Janet Morgan and Steve Blount play the two central characters, Mae and Joe, who meet at Swing dance class, he the older and more accomplished dancer, she the awkward, wrong-footed newcomer. They slowly form a friendship that reveals some of the difficulties in their lives: her absent boyfriend; his downfall from businessman and husband as the recent recession bit in Ireland.
Theyre not alone in the classes. The duo seamlessly bring to life and dance with a cast of imaginary characters that includes the irritable instructors, the ever-silent married couple, and the lovelorn single man. They make us laugh at all of them but with warmth and affection.
Swing is in the Dance category, but it could easily two-step into Drama or Comedy as it excels as all-round entertainment. Lindy-hop down there and get yourself a ticket. If you dont know how to Lindy-hop, take Joes advice and think of yourself as a big overloaded shopping trolley.

SG2014 Review: Amongst Millions

Venue (29): Paradise in the Vault

Category: Dance
Times: 7:30pm
Dates: Aug 4-10
Stars: ***
Reviewed by Tony Challis

In this thirty five minute solo show, Pedro Goucha Gomes conveys a great intensity of experience. The naked figure begins to move only very slowly, inching forward from the wall behind. Gradually he comes forward, and his face writhes, his tongue works and he leans forward, arms stretched wide and up, almost like a great bird. If you want to see here a fated albatross or many other images, you can. However, the person behind the concept of this extraordinary show, Miguelangel Clerc, is Chilean, and this body is to be seen as a protest against injustice, war and hypocrisy.
The intensity of the performance, as Gomes crouches to the floor, licks that, then moves more vigorously towards us, cannot be conveyed in words. One viewer told me after that at moments in the show he realised he had stopped breathing. Clercs intense, vibrant musical score adds much to the experience.
This has to be experienced in order to know how this event conveys the desperation, strength and fragility of current humanity.

SG2014 Review: Bianco

Venue (194): NoFit State Big Top

Category: Dance
Times: 8:00pm
Dates: Jul 29, Aug 1-25, not 4,11,18
Stars: ****
Reviewed by Mary Woodward

Bianco

Inside the circus tent, a huge metal cage wrapped in gauze, sections becoming transparent or opaque as the lights change: people climb ever higher into the rigging: there is a band and singers, on raised platforms. Jazz is playing, the party atmosphere grows, the gauze drops and the show begins

Up in the air, high above our heads look! Oh the grace! Oh the muscles! Oh the skills! It makes the Commonwealth Games gymnastics seem like kindergarten. Juggling as a true art form; a slow strip on the high wire; licensed bedlam with trampolines in a swimming pool; hoops, trapezes, long straps from which people dangle and sway and climb and swoop; counterweight people skimming up and down the tall towers as they balance the performers trajectories monochrome beauty, poetry in motion, and incredible joie de vivre!

The audience were moved to wonder and transfixed by the skill and energy of the performance as they were guided to the best viewpoints and places of safety around the Big Top: a small child was in awe, lifted by a parent into falling snow: the enthusiastic applause at the end was richly deserved, as the performers joined the audience and the party continued!