The Landscape of the Other Shore, ★★★★
Soft sounds of the sea cascade the stage, setting the scene and tone of my first Edinburgh Fringe show of 2025. A dark clouded sky is projected onto the background behind the set as slow-moving actors lull the audience into a sense of serenity – but not for long.
Chaos erupts. A group of children are shipwrecked and stranded at sea. Without the luxuries of modern life, boredom grows and takes them on a journey to their basest selves. The children begin to devolve or regress. Even after they’re returned to society and life continues around them, their crueler inner nature exposed on the island cannot be hidden.
Photography credit Shenzhen University School of Arts 201 Theatre Company
Performed in Mandarin with English surtitles, this surrealist play inspired by Gericault’s painting and George Kaiser’s play “The Raft of Medusa” uses light and shadow to express a harrowing reality. Every piece in the performance feels necessary and interlinked, working together to deliver some truly vivid performances by an expressive cast.
A striking and poignant performance that challenges its audience’s desensitization to the pain and suffering in the media.
Directed by Yaguang Hu, Shenzhen University School of Arts 201 Theatre Company. Cast: Guo Yiying, Zhang Yuxuan,Deng JinJin Zhilin,Zeng Xintong,Zhang Jiating,Peng Zijun.
Normal, ★★★★
The performers are already placed as the audience fills the bench seats – one person on a sofa to the left and the other four on or around folding chairs diagonally across. A wheelchair sits empty next to them. It almost feels like a setup for group therapy.
Movement starts slowly; a young performer unhurriedly walks to one of the seated people and they hug – embrace. It feels sensory, and from my vantage point, like comfort. Like coming home. The two performers weave around each other in intimate embraces, swaying towards the sole performer on the sofa. The second couple then start moving. Their movements are sharper and more erotic, incorporating the wheelchair after one performer helps the other in.
After some of the performers share their stories about disability, resilience and self-acceptance, the second act begins as two performers strip naked and begin a physically exerting dance that held the audience’s breath captive as the performers wrung their bodies around each other. Every inch of them is exposed during this performance, souls and bodies bared. There are moments that felt so preciously tender and others where I contemplated googling how often dancers get hernias.
Normal delivers a beautiful message with a moving story – both literally and figuratively – that challenges our perception of “normal” – normal bodies, normal love, normal lives.
71BODIES. Cast: Daniel Mariblanca, Helle-Viv Magnerud, Elizabeth Vatle Helgesen Chigwida, Iva Srot, Jean-Baptiste Baele
Trace of Belief, ★★★★
Our barefoot performers enter in blue tie-dyed loose-fitting trousers. They move to the melody of waves, water and the ting of bells. Light and shadow are used skillfully to highlight a synchronized performance that plait together styles of dance and tradition from all over the world.
There isn’t a clear narrative as far as I could discern as different styles of dance and movement from ballet to tai-chi to salsa to bhangra and kathak were all included in this marriage of dance and woven together like a tapestry to create a dreamlike performance. Intangible and haunting.
Copyright LIN YU-QUAN
Each dancer’s movements appear effortless, highlighting the incredible skill of each performer and the meticulousness of the choreographer and director. Even as the dance becomes more frantic, movement is precise and exacting. Yet the performance never feels stilted, delivering an inspired narrative on the power of belief.
A phenomenally tight yet whimsical performance by a talented cast of performances, backed by an imaginative director and choreographer.
Runs until 24 Aug, Assembly @ Dance Base, 20:30. Choregraphed by Hsieh Yi-Chun, Chun Dance.
Sàng Tsáu, ★★★
I fear I’ve been kidnapped to prance amongst the fairies. Or at least that’s how this incredibly fanciful performance feels – as if we are transported to meadow with impish and playful flower gods dancing circles around us.
Two performers, dressed in green and yellow, frolic around with each other in agile movements and nimble footwork. Percussion, flutes and stringed instruments guide the dancers.
There were moments when tighter synchronization could have strengthened the set along with a bit more tension, but both dancers’ agility during their duets were remarkable in their quickness, moving nimbly around each other on a quite small stage.
Sàng Tsáu is wonderfully magical piece that transforms a small theatre stage into a merry fête of celestial fun. I would love to see what these two can do with a bigger stage and budget.
Runs until 19 August, theSpace @ Niddry Street, 20:05. Hsu Chen Wei Dance Company.
Practice of Zen, ★★★★
We all had childhood whimsies where in a spark of imagination we became princesses and pirates, heroes and villains, or fairies and dragons. They were simpler times in some of our lives.
For the creators of Practice of Zen, it was the marital heroes of the Wuxia universe – a genre of Chinese fiction, usually historical, with mythical-like martial artists fighting for righteousness and equality in a martial universe.
The little details make this performance extra special – the blankets tied around the three actors’ necks as capes, household items wielded as swords – small symbols that pay tribute to childhood fantasies and play.
The actors deserve praise too as it was a delight to watch their vivid expressions shift from childhood innocence and joy to the more intense emotion as they battle evil and fight their own inner greed. I often felt my heart strings pulled as classic Wuxia tropes are utilized earnestly by a dynamic cast.
A nostalgic and endearing performance that pays homage to a beloved genre with a heartwarming childhood story that many can relate to.
Runs until 16 August at theSpace on the Mile, 15:35. Directed & Written by Alex Tam Hung Man. Performed by To Yim Shan, Wong Ka Chun, Choy Kai Fung, Ng Wing Ha.
Inlet, ★★★★
As soon as you walk into the white concrete-like set, you know you’re in for a treat. An intensely discomfiting one, I’m sure, but a treat, nonetheless.
Three bodies are hidden behind mismatched blocks, naked as the day they were born. A woman appears first with long wavy hair, she’s exploratory in her movements before she stands on the block like Aphrodite.
After two men emerge and explore their world as it is, they begin to reshape it, remould it, breaking barriers. But it doesn’t take long before they begin to fight over their resources, and one begins to subject the other – including the women who is meant to follow the path they’ve laid out for her. Her hands never touch the block to rebuild, only to shadow. And yet as the two men compete, break, and fall apart, she is the one who props them up and picks up the pieces.
Every element on stage from the set design to the music choice to the strategic lighting changes and the incredibly exacting performances were executed immaculately in this evocative and moving performance that often had me at the edge of the seat. A piece with a harrowing message enunciated without a single word spoken.
Runs until 23 August, Assembly @ Dance Base, 17:30. Choregraphed by Saeed Hani, Hani Dance. Performed by Francesco Ferrari, Ana F. Melero and Michele Scappa.
Tango in Silk, ★★★★
A dancer clad in a red velvet cheongsam sits cross-legged centre stage with a white feathered fan covering her face. As we wait, our imagination stirs and wisps of cigarette smoke seem to linger in the red light, reminiscent of 1930s Shanghai.
A trumpet heralds and our dancer moves. Hesitantly, almost shyly as she finds her feet. As she and the tempo pick up, a gentleman enters the stage with immaculate posture in a coat and tails. They make a striking pair as they whirl around the stage to a fusion of rhythmic Argentine and Chinese pipa melodies.
It’s a shame if you missed this whirlwind five-minute cross-cultural performance, as I was fearful to take my eyes away from the stage for a second. Tango in Silk delivered a texturally vivid performance that had be swaying my hips on the way out.
Choregraphed by Xi Liu. Performed by Xi Liu & Mingcong Hu.
Sole to Soul, ★★★★
I had run across town to make it to this show and slipped in two minutes late. I kept my head down as I quietly prepared my notebook and adapted to the new world I was immersing myself in.
Immediately, I’m drawn in to the performance of a young woman with bound embroidered slippers and dramatic bright makeup reminiscent of Chinese opera. A man dances around her with a blue IKEA bag full of shoes, seeming taunting her as he throws them around her.
With dramatic operatic expressions, we see the performer blossom, first daunted by her bound feet before the world begins to open up to her through her soles – and the possibilities of a world unbound before her.
It’s a daunting task standing out at the Edinburgh Fringe when you are a smaller shower with a smaller budget. However, Sole or Soul kept me engrossed in the story for the entire thirty minutes. An imaginative, amusing, sometimes melancholic yet beautifully rendered piece of theatre. A surprising performance not to be missed this year.
Runs until 19 August at theSpace @ Niddry St, 19:05. Takivan Damula Chuyouji. Performed by Wei-Wei Wu, and Chi-An Chen
Voyeur/Samba and Love, ★★★★★
As I stared at the Blazer Bunch sitting neatly on folding chairs and they gazed at us in turn, I instinctively knew that Voyeur had started strong before the music cuing the performance had even begun.
Incredibly evocative and blush-making, the performers take turns from being the voyeur to being watched. Every once in a while you catch their eyes on the audience, and you know its your turned to be observed instead of the observer. Every gaze, every hand placement and gravitative shift feels intentional and weighted. There is a moment near the end that is so achingly tender and intimate that you almost felt the need to look away and break that chain of voyeurism.
I was so immersed in that first performance, I didn’t know how they were going to top it. But if Voyeur started strong and intense, Samba & Love built up in a crescendo about the exhaustion and perils of modern life that lingered with me long afterwards.
Every performer was stand out. Each dancer delivering a stomach-droppingly exacting performance to tightly choregraphed sequences with smoothy executed steps that even had a director next me to nodding heartedly in approval.
A phenomenal duet of performances by a talented cast and choreographer. My favourite of the Fringe so far.
Runs until 24 August, Assembly @ Dance Base, 13:00. Choreographer: Lili de Grammont. São José dos Campos Dance Company.
Nüshu: Written for Her, on Her, by Her, ★★★★
Airy music fills the stage with chimes as a women in red dances behind a thin rice paper screen. The audience is witness to only her shadow and the movement of the fan in her hands as her arms sway like branches of a tree.
But she wouldn’t remain faceless for long. This was not that kind of performance. A women enters the stage and begins to tell us the story of Nüshu (nǚ = women, shū= book/script), a secret language made by and for women in rural Hunan province, passed down from mothers to daughters, and communicated from grandmothers to granddaughters and to friends who are sisters at heart.
At first, the music drowned out Jiayi’s message, but then her microphone started working, and I realized she had been determinedly carrying on with the heart and soul of the show despite technical difficulty. Somehow, this made of the theme more impactful as she gains her voice through her own perseverance.
All elements marry together to chronicle the stories of women; from chiming seashells she equates to society’s treatment of women as currency – holding value until traded and then forgotten – to the flowing fabric that represents the river carrying the blood and tears of women, to the painting of Nüshu on each other’s skin as they come together to remember women of the past, honour those present and empower the future.
Nüshu: Written for Her, on Her, by Her began and ended with the power of remembering names and introduces us to her grandmother who forgot her own name and self in marriage, and to her cousin who helped write the show. A powerfully story told with poignantly placed choreography and symbolism that holds an eternal message.
Runs until 10 August, C ARTS | C venues | C aquila, 13:45. Produced by The Great Her, Written and performed by Jiayi Chen.
1457, The Boy at Rest, ★★★★★
Don’t spoil the ending or the whole show is ruined. A phrase often uttered by keen watchers of media. However, 1457, The Boy at Rest rejects that notion and starts at the end – to the betrayal and death of our young and short-lived King Danjong.
However, even knowing King Danjong’s tragic fate, I found myself tearing up at the unfairness of it all. At the heartfelt pleas of the young king who was really only a boy, betrayed by the only family member he had left. This is a testament to the actor who plays King Danjong who showed incredible emotional range both in his acting and singing. His shift between acceptance of his fate, to finding quiet moments of joy, to utter despair would have had me on my knees in sobs if I wasn’t already seated.
I peeked at the man next to me during the performance to find him discretely dabbing his eyes and somehow felt a little better in sharing grief for a man who had died over 500 years ago.
This wasn’t a one man show however. Every actor on stage played a significant role in delivering this phenomenal piece of work. Danjong’s uncle was convincingly ruthless in his decision-making and believably bitter. Queen Jeongsun’s role was brief but her exquisite and dynamic singing was a shot straight to the heart. The ministers and court officials never felt superfluous, and their group songs took my breath away.
The song sung after King Danjong was sent to exile was stand out. The sentiment of each loyal minister before sentenced to their deaths was vivid on their faces and in their hauntingly beautiful voices. And a special thanks to our Dokkaebi (goblins) who provided comic relief between all the trauma and also moved the story along in an organic way.
Superb acting and heartfelt singing bring to life this achingly tragic story that will linger with me for a while. I put this director and cast on my ‘must-see’ list.
Runs until 24 August, Assembly George Square Gardens – Studio One, 14:45. Directed and written by Jiyune Sang. Poem and Star / Korean Season by GCC & AtoBiz.
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