Edinburgh Festival Insider - Dance / Physical Award 2009

Perhaps my favourite category of the Fringe programme, the dance / physical section always contains shows which challenge, delight and impress with feats of skill, fluid movements and some of the most original works to grace Edinburgh's stage during August.

The nominations for the Edinburgh Festival Insider Dance / Physical Award 2009 are:

• The Chair by C-12 Dance Theatre. A striking and well-choreographed piece from a young UK company that show significant promise.
• C!rca. A beautifully staged and skillful set full of acrobatic movements made to look effortless by a talented group.
• Zeitgeist by Zen Zen Zo. An astonishing, challenging, brave and uncompromising piece which pushed its unique artistic vision straight into your face.
• The Kosh in The Storeroom. An accomplished one-woman performance that contained sequences of beautifully-realised movement and dance.
• Tales of the Apocalypse by Airealism. Wonderful rope, silk and trapeze skills from a group that presented an at-times surreal yet always captivating performance.
  

And the winner is...

Zeitgeist by Zen Zen Zo

A performance which you could not tear your eyes away from, Zeitgeist contained moments of beauty, startling originality, black humour and excellent choreography, courtesy of the acclaimed and uncompromising Zen Zen Zo physical theatre and dance group from Australia. Like some vision from Dante's Inferno, the dancers cavorted, squealed and ultimately dazzled with a show that fast became one of the tickets to secure at the Fringe.

For that, they more than deserve the:

Photo of the Day - Noir by Airealism

A tender moment during Airealism's visually beautiful show Noir. Click image to view full size.

Review: Tales of the Apocalypse by Airealism *****

Tales of the Apocalypse is Airealism's sister show to Noir, both appearing at the Gilded Balloon until Sunday.

As with Noir, this show is a series of impeccably choreographed aerial acts of rope skills and physical theatre, performed by an expert troupe at the top of their game.

Tales of the Apocalypse has less in the way of plot than its companion, being more of a series of vignettes loosely tied together by a nightmarish post-apocalyptic future vision. Performers wearing gasmasks, confused survivors, mutants, robots - imagine Mad Max reinterpreted by David Lynch and you're maybe something close to half-way there.

As previously mentioned, I was particularly impressed by Noir's large-scale ensemble pieces; Tales of the Apocalypse didn't have these, with most sequences featuring only one or two performers at a time. It didn't suffer from this however, due to some dazzling lighting and costumes, married with a well-matched soundtrack which this time fitted the stylised visuals perfectly.

And what visuals they were: some were breathtaking in their beauty and style whilst others amused or fascinated, such as the divertingly original take on war in Heaven, which saw Gabriel and the Devil locked in a struggle for supremacy, constantly clambering over each other on a trapeze until one emerged triumphant.

Both of Airealism's shows have been stunning, but if I'm forced to pick a favourite, it's this one. Its unique vision, acts of skillful acrobatics and its direction add up to a show that is hard to fault and deserves full houses for the rest of its all too short run.

Tales of the Apocalypse runs until Aug 16th at the Gilded Balloon. Price £10 (£9 concession)

Review: Noir ****

Down-at-heel hardboiled hero? Check. Glamourous love interest? Check. Seductive femme fatale? Check. Shady criminal villains with evil intent? Yes, all the classic film noir archetypes are here, fear not.

But you will never have seen them portrayed like this. Airealism, an international troupe of aerial circus performance artistes, bring these characters to life in a unique and rather spellbinding way. Ropes, nets, curtains and trapezes hang from the set, and the cast make full use of them, whether swinging from the high-wire or spinning seductively in suspended hoops. Or, in one particular scene, playing a hand of poker whilst suspended upside down on a vertical-hanging net.

Noir is full of superb imagery and some wonderfully choreographed vignettes. One stand out was the hero’s chloroform-induced dream sequence, with the entire cast - dressed in white - spinning, climbing and swinging as he hung suspended and motionless from the trapeze. This, like many parts of the show, was one of those rare stage scenes where there is so much going on you struggle to take it all in.

The soundtrack is filled with music from the 40s and 50s, although at some points more modern dance / techno tracks accompany the action, which I found a little anachronistic to the overall mood of the piece.

Performed with no dialogue, Noir relies on the cast’s skill and grace alone to tell the tale, ably helped by good lighting and stylishly simple costumes.

Airealism are only here for a short while (their runs finish on the 16th), so I’d encourage you to catch this – or their other show, Tales of The Apocalypse, which I’ll review soon – before they coil up their ropes and rigging and depart, off to spin their aerial magic elsewhere.