FESTIVAL DANCE | Reviews

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THE DREAMER Historic texts meld to create a distinctly modern dream ●●●●●

Created originally for the British Council’s project to commemorate 400 years since Shakespeare’s death, this collaboration between Gecko and Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre marries together A Midsummer Night’s Dream and 16th-century Chinese play The Peony Pavilion. Both toy with the significance of dreams and the complications of unrequited love. In Midsummer’s case, two men are in love with Hermia, leaving Helena in the cold until magic comes onto the scene. The Peony Pavilion’s central character is a woman who dreams she falls in love with a man who in the real world enters her locality only after her death.

In The Dreamer, the focus of the story is on Shakespeare’s

Helena, with the action wittily transported to present-day Shanghai. Helena works in an admin role for a generic company and is in love with her colleague Demetrius. He in turn only has eyes for Hermia, who is in love with Lysander. To escape the grind, Helena reads, and her book conjures up visions of mythical love such as in Peony’s central story. Gradually her imagination overtakes her in waking dreams and she fantasises about meeting Oberon and Titania . It’s a neatly crafted concept and updates the texts with modern resonance while leaving space for their mythical surrealist sides. The dialogue is in Mandarin and there are no supertitles, but this barely detracts, as the physical storytelling is so alive.

Though some of these dream sequences have a tendency to ramble, the stagecraft keeps our interest piqued with surprise entrances and exits, and splashes of colour. Ni Peiwen’s live violin playing is exquisite and the ending rescues Helena from Shakespeare’s stale double wedding, transforming her path into that of a contemporary woman taking control. (Lucy Ribchester) Pleasance Courtyard, until 15 Aug, 1.30pm, £11.50–£14.50 (£9.50–£13).

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THE HUMOURS OF BANDON Golden yarn about Irish dancing ●●●●●

BORDER TALES Post-Brexit Britain under the spotlight ●●●●● WERELDBAND: SLÄPSTICK Maestros with a flair for musical comedy ●●●●●

Writer-performer Margaret McAuliffe spins a yarn of gold about the world of Irish dancing in this solo show, a monologue punctuated by flashes of her own mastery of the dance. Riverdance may have made some of the steps universally recognisable, but here they are only the iceberg’s tip of a sprawling world of relationships, power battles, self-esteem struggles and blind passion as knotty as the Celtic emblems embroidered on the famous traditional dresses. We follow teenager Annie though three open championships, each with its own life lesson about winning and losing. Meanwhile, she has to navigate pressure from her teacher, well-meaning support from her mother, and the unfairness of her rival having a dance teacher for a father.

McAuliffe’s script is neatly crafted and flows with an easy warmth that makes time fly in her company. Neither scorning nor putting the dance on a pedestal, the play leaves you with the same mixed feelings as Annie: awe at the discipline required, frustration and curiosity in equal measure at the ingrained traditions, and respect for any child who learns about the spirit of competition and compassion in such a unique environment. (Lucy Ribchester) Dance Base, until 27 Aug (not 14, 21), 6.30pm, £12 (£10).

68 THE LIST FESTIVAL 10–17 Aug 2017

Political events in the UK and globally have made this lively and intermittently engaging collage of movement, speech and music even more relevant than when Luca Silvestrini’s company Protein premiered it in 2014. Devised by the original cast, most of whom are still performing in it, and stitched together from their experiences, this now slightly reworked show takes immigration and the great (and sometimes greatly troubled) British cultural melting pot as its main subjects.

Loosely structured around a welcome party for a group of disparate guests, Silvestrini and an international cast of seven have some serious fun playing with a host of stereotypical assumptions, often based on appearance or country of origin, that might arise before people can truly begin to know each other. Standouts in the cast include the gently leonine Salah El Brogy and Yuyu Rau, while Andy Gardiner gradually transcends caricature as a camp, motor-mouthed bigot.

Forced or phoney bits mainly in the script are kept to a minimum, while the dancing is uniformly excellent, especially an exhilarating, full-throttle ensemble finale. (Donald Hutera) Summerhall, until 26 Aug (not 14, 21), 2.40pm, £13 (£11).

No prizes for guessing the focus of this show: the stage is a carnival of musical instruments. Over in one corner is a tree of mandolins and banjos, scattered on the backdrop are violins and violas, and in the middle a pianola tinkles away to itself. But those are barely half of what this awesomely versatile troupe of slapstick maestros use to serenade us during an hour that is as impressive as it is funny. The five performers from the Netherlands have an eclectic and eccentric hoard of influences. A motormouthed fairground conman plies his trolley of games between musical numbers, four tramps with shaving-foam noses play bandoneon in lonely harmony, and a battle between Spanish and Italian seduction songs turns gracelessly vicious.

It’s hard to pinpoint sometimes what alchemy the group has hit on that makes them so funny. Why, for instance, does ‘Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head’ sung earnestly in German sound so daft? The answer probably lies in the fact that underneath the eponymous slapstick is an enormous amount of musical showmanship and a library of knowledge for pastiching styles and instruments. (Lucy Ribchester) Assembly George Square Theatre, until 27 Aug, 6pm, £12–£14 (£10).