list.co.uk/festival Reviews | FESTIVAL DANCE
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ARAB ARTS FOCUS: DANCE DOUBLE BILL Compromised by visa restrictions, this unplanned offering still has much to share ●●●●●
Clearly for Egypt-based choreographer Shaymaa Shoukry, the show must go on. Presented under the auspices of the Arab Arts Focus, this bill was meant to pair a solo Shoukry created for Sudanese dancer Nagham Saleh, and another by the Palestine-born choreographer Yazan Iwidat. But visa restrictions imposed upon dancer Hamza Damra meant the entire performance had to be quickly reconfigured. What we see instead is a single live solo and two short films (an extract from Shoukry’s ‘Mayhkomsh’ plus Iwidat’s ‘Running Away’ in its 17-minute entirety). It’s the live solo that counts most. Shoukry originally created ‘The resilience of the body’ for herself. In Edinburgh, it’s danced by Mahmoud el Hadad , a long, lean man with an unassuming yet quietly authoritative manner. He spends about 15 minutes running in circles at a steadfast pace, accompanying himself with utterances that tend to commence ‘I will keep on running until . . . ’ and end with phrases like ‘ . . . my skin colour is no longer a problem.’ This challenging, vicarious act of physical endurance and protest might seem hard to take, but it expands in the mind as it carries on. (Donald Hutera) ■ Summerhall, until 27 Aug (not 14, 21), 1.35pm, £8.
DJUKI MALA Aboriginal traditions meet modern-day music ●●●●● GOSSIP A surreal storm of human behaviour ●●●●●
There’s a little video intro before this performance begins, explaining where the Yolngu people live: in Elcho Island, a remote spot in Arnhem Land, Australia. Slavery, disease, high suicide rates and the forced removal of children are part of the Aboriginal Australian people’s colonised past and the show’s mixed-race director Joshua Bond doesn’t want that to be forgotten. But he also doesn’t want his family’s story to be a downer. He’s spent ten years touring with Djuki Mala, a troupe of dancers who mix traditional styles with Michael Jackson moves they’ve watched on YouTube.
Czech choreographer Lenka Vagnerová has a fascination for animal behaviour and has previously choreographed pieces that explore wolves and birds. Here she turns her eye to a different type of animal, one that exhibits no less baffling traits: the human. Gossip takes place over the course of one man’s birthday party, a loose frame for the surreal collection of vignettes that make up the piece. At first it feels as if we are in a comic strip. Revellers move in clockwork jerks, tipping back champers, sizing one another up. There’s something monkey-ish about their curious, greedy gestures. They ostracise, manipulate, point, laugh.
Didgeridoo drones introduce the first dance, Two men are turned into puppets, one man rips
where clapsticks and wailing chants accompany the five male dancers. Crouching, creeping moves morph into rhythmic full-body spasms, which blend into a wavy-armed Bollywood sequence with infectious drumming. The dancers facial expressions – sometimes coy and girly, sometimes filled with swagger – add a nice touch of comedy to their routines. It’s an energetic hour, keeping the focus on this full-on display of fun, infectious moves. (Claire Sawers) ■ Assembly George Square, until 28 Aug (not 14, 21), 4.30pm, £15–£16 (£13–£14). apart chicken as another has his bones broken, and one couple has their secrets pulled from them in the form of black tape, ending in a stormcloud of the stuff, billowing and suffocating as it is tossed around the stage. Vagnerová’s dance palette echoes her earlier work in its animalistic movement and passages of breakneck speed. These varied textures are the driving force behind the piece, and while the ideas don’t always come fully to the fore, there is never a dull moment – like any good debauched gathering. (Lucy Ribchester) ■ ZOO Southside, until 15 Aug, 8.30pm, £14 (£12).
SIGMA Gandini Juggling’s homage to the beauty of patterns ●●●●●
In the nimble hands of the Gandinis, juggling always falls more in line with choreography than circus stunts. Two years ago the company collaborated with Scottish Ballet in 4 x 4 Ephemeral Architectures. Before that, Smashed – their homage to Pina Bausch – saw a cast of nine destroy a tea set’s worth of crockery every night in a chaotic finale. Chaos is present in Sigma too, which turns to the rhythms and
lines of Bharatanatyam dance – a South Indian classical dance rich in intricate hand movements – to riff and balance with juggling. But it’s a chaos of a subtle and sophisticated kind, in a piece that is broken down neatly into 12 segments, segueing through peaks and troughs of tempo, creating patterns both minimal and sinuous. The four performers – Gandini co-founder Kati Ylä-Hokkala,
Bharatanatyam choreographer Seeta Patel, dancer Indu Panday and juggler Kim Huynh – stagger introductions to themselves throughout the show. These are complete with the dates and places of the birth of their parents, a plotting in time and space of the lines reaching backwards and intersecting human lives. This sense of interconnectivity channels a current through the show that is quietly mesmerising. Juggling balls seem to travel horizontally across vertical lines; spotlit hands produce an infinite variation of geometries and melt in and out of holding a red ball; connections are drawn between Bob Fosse’s jazz choreography and Bharatanatyam postures. Underscoring it all is music with mathematical structures: electro pips, metallic percussion, Bach’s Goldberg Variations.
If all this makes it sound terribly conceptual, Sigma’s simple
beauty and playful tone reaches beyond its complicated ideas. On the way out a tiny girl toddles up to Patel. ‘I love your dancing!’ she cries. (Lucy Ribchester) ■ Assembly Hall, until 28 Aug (not 9, 14, 21), 1.30pm, £10–£12.
10–17 Aug 2017 THE LIST FESTIVAL 67