Reviews & features: Dance, Kirstin Innes
- Filtered by:
- Kirstin Innes
- Dance
Dance show Hi-Kick a hit for football and dance enthusiasts alike
11 Jul 2012
A play of football and dance from South Korean Fringe favourites
Football is a very big deal in South Korea. It’s difficult to imagine, say, the Scottish Government giving the country a half-day off for World Cup matches (should our national side ever make it back to the biggest football tournament on earth), or…
Scottish Ballet at 2011 Edinburgh International Festival
25 Aug 2011
Ashley Page and Jorma Elo on the EIF programme
Ashley Page maintains that, when putting together Scottish Ballet’s new double bill for the Edinburgh International Festival, pairing the legendary Scottish choreographer Kenneth MacMillan’s neo-classical 1965 piece Song of the Earth with a completely…
Enclosure 99: Humans
18 Aug 2011
Are we human or are we dancer?
The youngest female folds her body into a knot in the corner of the Perspex-fronted cage, slipping her head into the lap of the youngest male. ‘As you can see, this one is particularly flexible,’ explains the zookeeper, wryly. ‘And this one; well, we…
Pinocchio: A Fantasy of Pleasures
11 Aug 2011
Adults-only retelling is decidedly not Disney
Sometimes the spectacle is enough. The experience of watching Company XIV’s radical reinterpretation of Pinocchio is a little like gorging on gourmet food: something sensual and rich that might not offer you too much nourishment in the long run, but…
Forgetting Natasha
11 Aug 2011
Multimedia memories with excellent choreography
As a poetic and artistic response to early-onset dementia, Forgetting Natasha is a well-conceived idea with some utterly beautiful moments. The writing, by Anna Mae Selby, is sharply-observed and designed to tug at the heartstrings. Multimedia…
Dot504: Mah Hunt
10 Aug 2011
Acclaimed Czech dance company bring duet to 2011 Edinburgh Fringe
DOT504 made its Fringe debut in 2008 with Holdin’ Fast, a woozy, delicate work about desire, with six young dancers tumbling and fondling under showers of glitter and old Persian carpets. The company returned by popular demand in 2009 with the darker…
Dance Marathon
8 Aug 2011
Sweat-slicked endurance test
At three hours in, the fatigue has begun to show. As per the First Rule of Dance Marathon, we’re all still moving our feet constantly, but it’s descended to a listless, obedient shuffling. A room full of sweating strangers, inhibitions completely lost…
Agnes and Walter (A Little Love Story)
29 Jul 2011
A Walter Mitty-inspired dance performance that reclaims the power of daydreams
Poor old Walter Mitty. Since James Thurber published the Secret Life in the 1930s, his name has become synonymous with deranged fantasising. However, a newly-established dance company has decided to rescue him from the sniggers of history. ‘Something…
Dance Marathon - Edinburgh show where audience provides the action
28 Jul 2011
3-hour long participatory show inspired by They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?
It’s over three hours long, inspired by that celluloid study of Depression-era desperation They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, and you, the audience, provide the majority of the action. Doesn’t sound like a great night out on the surface, but Dance…
Meredith Monk: Songs of Ascension
7 Sep 2010
There is so much beauty here
It’s difficult to begin describing Songs of Ascension, a new(ish) work by composer, musician, artist and mercurial force of nature Meredith Monk, because it doesn’t fit cleanly into any of the nice, regular boxes we use to describe different kinds of…
Maria De Buenos Aires
19 Aug 2010
An Argentine feast for all five senses
A programme note warns audience members going into this anarchic reinterpretation of Astor Piazzolla’s already surreal 1968 ‘tango opera’ not to worry about following any sort of narrative. Thus released, you’re free to let teeming chaos wash over…
Cape Dance Company
19 Aug 2010
Pop star-slick, but patchy
The key to what doesn’t quite work about this uneven showcase from one of Africa’s most acclaimed young companies is right there in the first piece – Michael Thomas’ pastoral/pop fusion Treasures of the Heart. They’re technically superb on the…
Intertwine
14 Aug 2010
Works, and dancers, in progress
Collisions Dance Company are on the cusp. They’re young enough – as a company and individuals – that they haven’t quite found their own style yet, but they’re also talented enough that watching even an uneven collection of small pieces like this feels…
Be-Dom
14 Aug 2010
Joyous fun with Portuguese drums
As the huge white screen they’ve been playing behind in silhouette collapses to reveal what appears to be a junkyard full of cavorting, hunky (and fairly well-scrubbed) crusties, the tone is set for an hour of shambolic play. Switching fairly…
The Regretrospective
14 Aug 2010
The tiger who came to tea with his ex-lover, the horse
Under ‘experiences that could only happen at the Fringe’, chalk up ‘watching a woman wearing a horse’s head use flamenco to seduce her ex-lover, a large cuddly toy tiger, in a bedsit, to a trip hop soundtrack’. And yet, bizarrely, dancer and multimedia…
Inside features live score from 65daysofstatic
9 Aug 2010
Dance: not just for girls, okay?
Hefty, stark and at times brutally visceral, Inside, the new work by boy wonder Jean Abreu, is macho dance, its choreography built around lines of masculinity and inspired by prison movies. There are no tutus, no extraneous flounces, and, with a live…
Martin Creed: Ballet Work No 1020
8 Aug 2010
Oh, do try harder, disgruntled of Sadler’s Wells
Three stars. That’s what Martin Creed’s getting, although I suspect he was aiming for one, and some outrage. Three stars because there are a couple of interesting dance moments, a few good laughs, and some of the musical numbers are quite good, although…
Continent
8 Aug 2010
Barton finks too much
There’s something curiously retro about this little piece, from the tight-fitting, slightly shiny suits worn by its performers to the old fashioned world of typewriters and briefcases it conjures up.
Dance Doctor Dance! explores our relationship with movement
3 Aug 2010
Doctor of dance delving deep into artform
Peter Lovatt actually is a doctor of dance: he heads up the Dance Psychology Laboratory at the University of Hertfordshire. Given a biography that includes stints as a ballet dancer, cruise ship entertainer and expert-for-hire on The Graham Norton Show…
120 Birds tells tale of 1920s Australian dance company
3 Aug 2010
Homage to Anna Pavlova and ballet’s golden age
‘This is not a history lesson,’ explains the pre-publicity surrounding 120 Birds, one of Dance Base’s specially-commissioned works for the Fringe this year. In a way, that’s true – it’s a fictional story of the travels and travails of a 1920s Australian…
Cento Cose marks multimedia dance debut for physical theatre collective
3 Aug 2010
Award-winning look at day-to-day life with Aphex Twin score
Italian physical theatre collective Compagnia della Quarta’s multimedia Fringe debut is based on the idea that there are ‘cento cose’ (‘one hundred things’ in Italian) that contemporary life requires us to do each working day. ‘We started with “we do…
Gelabert Azzopardi Companyia de Dansa
23 Aug 2009
Works of total theatre from Cesc Gelabert
Catalan choreographer, Cesc Gelabert is back at the Edinburgh International Festival after a five-year absence. He’s been missed, and the two new works he delivers in this double-bill show exactly why. These are works of total theatre, where music…
Everything Must Go (or the voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles)
21 Aug 2009
Dad, in drag, in memoriam
It says on the programme notes that this show is a labour of love, and it is. Kristin Fredricksson’s father Karl was a hurdler, a ballet dancer, a drag enthusiast, a comic, a creator of characters, and a hoarder. He died of cancer in June this year; and…
One Up One Down
21 Aug 2009
Single consumerist satire, GSOH, seeks breathing space
Natasha Gilmore’s latest work continues her crusade to create accessible, comic-tinged dance-theatre that engages with contemporary issues. This is a satire on the pressures of consumer culture on women, with three impossibly lovely, pink-clad dancers…
Zeitgeist
18 Aug 2009
Breathtaking Butoh bento box
This is the first time Australian company, Zen Zen Zo has come to the Fringe, but they’re no blushing debutants. Zeitgeist is a retrospective of their shorter works inspired by the untamed Japanese art form of Butoh. But it’s also a pulse check, a look…
