The crazy festival season has ended here in
Edinburgh and a pleasantly mild and uncrowded September is upon us. But back at
the beginning of Fringe I wrote my impressions of my first festival show...
Balletronic. My first Edinburgh Fringe
Festival Show. It was amazing, mesmerizing. Such precision and energy. It was a
group from Havana, Cuba. The music, modern things by Paloma Faith, Avicii and
the like, combined with ballet, with a dash of modern dance style, made my skin
tingle and my heart feel like it was swelling up in my chest. But in a good
way. I felt elevated by it, lifted by watching the dancers lift each other and
move with such apparent ease. It was amazing to watch them and remember that
those were human bodies out there, just like mine and those of the audience
members around me, but exercised and rehearsed to such a pitch of strength for
this specific activity that movements like bending in half backwards, tossing
another person into the air, and lifting a leg directly, straight into the air
until it was beside their ear while they balanced just on the toes of their
other foot in point shoes, looked like simple, normal motions.
The music of the performance was played live,
including a glamorous lead vocalist with a voice like Cher if she were a jazz
club singer instead of a pop star. I think my favourite part was a short number
were the principal female dancer (a girl with legs that looked like those of a blown
glass, horse figurine. You know what I mean, a youtube video did the rounds not
long ago refreshing people’s memory of them) did a solo dance to a featured
performance of one of the most talented violinists I’ve ever heard. He walked
around the stage as he played and she danced around him, looking like she was
possessed by the music, so in tune with it were her motions, like she was the
physical manifestation of the sounds.
Another number saw the dancers emerge wrapped
in bands of fabric that looked like the insides of a VHS tape when the VCR eats
it and all the film comes spilling out (this analogy is on the verge of being
obsolete, but I don’t think it’s come to that yet). They were elegantly tangled
in the ‘video tape’, twirling and lifting each other in and out of it, all set
to music that you would fully expect to hear when you were getting a massage
and if you looked at the CD cover it would be called ’Japanese Waterfall in
Spring’ or something to that effect.
The performance I saw was their first of the
festival after the previous night’s performance had to be cancelled. As a
result, the theatre was packed and it felt like you were having a fully clothed
sauna session without the leg room. But once the dancing started you forgot all
that; it completely drew you in with the passion and drama of the performance.
And just as you truly felt you were watching the real life version of Centre
Stage (a movie obsessively popular with me and my friends growing up) they
actually did their last number to the same song as the last number in Centre
Stage (‘Canned Heat’ by Jamiroquai for those of a curious disposition)! They
even danced their curtain call. It was an incredible performance and a
wonderful reminder of why it’s great to be here in this new city.
...I went to a number of other shows during
the festival, though not as many as I would’ve liked. Highlights included a
group who performed improvised Jane Austen novel ‘adaptations’ based on
audience suggestions written on bits of paper and drawn randomly from a hat.
The show we were treated to was titled ‘Eminem, Enema and Emma’. Surprisingly
funny.
Another show, also improvised comedy, was
based on prompts from the game Cards Against Humanity, which, anyone who has
ever played that game could tell you, led to some very off colour and amusing
humour. As big fans of the game Laura and I sat in the audience saying to one
another “ah, that card! That’s a good one”.
While it’s a shame to no longer be able to
think “what shall I do with my day off? Maybe I’ll just wander the city until I’m
given a flyer for a free comedy show starting in five minutes” It’s a relief to
be able to walk down the streets again instead of feeling like a thrashing fish
in a barrel getting nowhere. There are no fire twirlers in the park, but
grocery shopping is no longer a two hour contact sport either, so, pros and
cons. Farewell Fringe, it was fun....ish!
