Moving in Circles
Performance Reviews || Sunday, 12 August, 2007
August in Edinburgh means it's Festival time, so unless you plan on living in a hole for the next month, you may as well embrace it! (As you wont be able to walk down the street without being accosted by a performer promoting “the best show in the world, ever!”)
The main festival offers the usual high end (well funded and promoted) programme of ballet and contemporary dance. Or you could take your pick of one of around 100 Fringe shows on offer. But if you don’t fancy gambling a tenner on a show you know little about, you can always bet you can see something challenging and exciting at Dance Base (they’ve done the vetting for you!)
As well as the many visiting companies, it is great to see so much home-grown talent on the programme this year.
An example of which is Hip Hop Scotch by Moving in Circles.
I have to say the sight of the lone piper and the footage of highlander battles at the beginning of the piece worried me slightly. References to Scottish culture have the danger of descending into the world of tartan and shortbread.
However as the show unfolded, with the backdrop and text like a silent movie, we see a clever and insightful look at the similarities between modern B-Boy dance and ancient battle. Writhing bodies on the floor as if dying in their last breath builds up to some breathtaking break dancing with a clever and comic fusion of Scottish celidh dance and hip hop style.
The bag pipes competing with the DJ and the beat boxer leading to a musical collaboration that really works (especially due to the very talented Scottish Asian piper). Great to see the Scottish references move from pride and over sentimentality to laughing at ourselves, the boys clearly having fun.
I just wish the audience did a bit more. Break dancing, in particular, is a show of audience participation but the trouble with the reserved Edinburgh audience is knowing when they’re enjoying themselves!
The show is aimed at a younger audience but I know my 91 year old Scottish gran would love it too!
The Dance Base programme also contains several pieces where choreographers are performing their own work, which always adds a powerful edge. From the strange and almost uncomfortable to watch, to the downright hilarious, they might raise that age-old question "what is dance?" Why do people feel the need to stretch the boundaries of performance?
But I love it when I watch something such as Vermiculus performed by Eeva Muilu and I say to myself, “thank goodness they do – this is great!”
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