For starters, here are a few of my favourite dancers at the fringe this year. One who made me smile is Alex O’Neill in Dublin company CoisCéim Dance Theatre’s Dancehall Blues. He’s the highlight of an underpowered piece of dance theatre, a duet set in a (somewhat apocalyptic) society in crisis, about rediscovering the importance of human connection. O’Neill brings the material to life with character and charm, pouncing on the steps, his movement muscular and vernacular, with sensitivity and bite.
Her show has already ended, but Sarah Aviaja Hammeken is absolutely one to watch out for in the future, an award-winning Danish dancer/choreographer whose solo Soil is about her Greenlandic heritage. The work felt like it could be further developed, but every time Hammeken danced I was engrossed in the instinctive expressiveness and gravity of her movement, the feeling of someone working things out, physically and mentally, a fluent conversation between mind and body.
Kennedy Junior Muntanga is another utterly compelling mover, a dancer of immense, intense power and finesse, but one who seems almost resistant to give us what he’s good at. In his experimental solo Akropolis I, there’s even a line where he seemingly admonishes himself under his breath: “Just dance!” Akropolis I was a late addition to the fringe and shows Muntanga still struggling with what he wants to say and how, but he’ll be well worth seeing when he works it out.
Honourable mention for an acrobat who is also clearly a great dancer with a distinctive physical style: Ange Viaud from new company Copenhagen Collective, who debuted The Genesis, a large-scale acrobatics show in the mode of festival faves Circa or Gravity and Other Myths (the show is three-star good with tons of potential). Viaud shows precision gymnastic prowess and b-boy flair, but also has a wildness about him, as if anything could happen next.
From the sample of shows I dipped into this year, it’s hard to spot trends across the dance (and circus/physical theatre) programme, except perhaps a sense of mild disappointment and the feeling no one’s had quite enough rehearsal time to develop their ideas. Often shows are frustrating because you can see there’s some great talent or material there but it’s just not working. Case in point, Canadian company We All Fall Down, whose last fringe show, Papillon, was very well regarded. They returned this year with something much more personal. Because You Never Asked is based on a recording of co-director Roger White talking to his Jewish grandmother, who escaped from Germany in 1939, to Edinburgh. The stories of growing up amid the rise of nazism, of Hitler visiting Hamburg, of friends being taken from their homes, have huge inbuilt power that is completely drowned out at times by a soundtrack that competes in frequency, and the distraction of dance that seems wilfully at odds with the text. The music has a thriller-ish tone of percussive booms and nerves-on-edge strings that is entirely unnecessary – we all know the underlying horror. It’s a bombardment that undermines the strength of the source material.
Elsewhere, some underwhelming circus-theatre from Quebec’s Flip Fabrique in Six°. Contrary to the current vogue for stripped-back circus, this one comes with a theatrical setting and quirky characters. What that setting is and who those characters are isn’t totally clear, and there’s a moral brewing but the big reveal never really comes. Nevertheless, it’s genial entertainment with some cheeky acrobats prone to silly dancing.
Also a little underwhelming, homegrown company Barrowland Ballet addressed the topic of the moment, masculinity, in Wee Man, particularly as it applies to teenage boys – there were four of them in this production and very good they were, too. The show felt a bit like it was in its workshop stages and while it was very warm and well-meaning, there was nothing too surprising in the ideas offered about what it supposedly takes to be a man, even if the quotes no doubt come from real life: don’t cry; if you can’t be popular, be funny; be strong, be right, be aggressive. Having said that, there were a couple of Scottish references that raised a laugh: “Always walk as if you’re wearing a sporran full of porridge”, and the rule of summer, apt for the heatwave outside – “When it hits 16 degrees, taps aff!”
Still, there were surprise finds at the festival, too. Like a sweet kids show from Revel Puck Circus, The Ugly Duckling, all about embracing your differences, which has a lot of knowing lines for the adults, too. Then the two-hander Go! from company Corps In Situ, a martial arts duet that’s beautifully choreographic in its sense of rhythm, pace, attack and grace. The performers have absolute physical command and focus but there’s playfulness and humour, too. It’s a short (40-minute) show that’s skilful and satisfying.
Scoring high for likability factor is TS Crew from Hong Kong, who in No Sugar No Milk combined hip-hop, beatbox, martial arts, circus and a lot of physical humour in silly skits, set in a Hong Kong cafe. The high jinks of the slightly hapless staff involved low-stakes antics like running scared from a toy mouse and artfully chucking packing boxes around.
Finally, gently transporting us away from the chaos of Edinburgh’s rammed streets is Mele Broomes’s daydreamy Through Warm Temperatures, part of the Made in Scotland showcase. (Even local artists can barely afford to perform at the festival these days without being part of an official showcase, and the dance and circus programmes are dominated by international groups.) The piece is like a hypnotic ritual, the company of dancers/singers led by Broomes bathed in low light in shades of purple, magenta and blue. Cellist/composer Simone Seales sits at the back of the stage looping riffs to set up a lulling vibe; dancers’ feet pad side to side in a repetitive sway; there’s a shoulder massage, the sheen of castor oil on the performers’ skin catching the light. A voice intones: “I search inside myself to forgive myself … no shame.” It’s a ritual for healing and self-acceptance, and a world I wanted to be absorbed inside.