list.co.uk/festival Reviews | F E S T I VA L DA N C E
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ALI AND ALPO Exquisite Finnish dance and Iraqi music ●●●●● KOMBINI Russian-style clowning from Montreal ●●●●●
Soon after Ali Alawad and Alpo Aaltokoski begin to perform, you realise you are in the presence of two exceptional artists. Except we are not fully in the presence of one of them. Alawad is an asylum seeker from Iraq and, two weeks before the production’s premiere in 2017, his application for asylum in Finland was rejected and he fled to avoid forced repatriation. He appears here in video projection only, as in the original piece. Clowns are used to mortgaging their dignity for our entertainment, but Montreal’s Les Foutoukours have found a situation that even someone wearing striped pantaloons, a ruff and a red nose would balk at: performing at a child’s birthday party. It’s a neat piece of meta-clowning, allowing us to see clowns humiliated by dressing up as . . . clowns – just in even more garish and unflattering costumes than they were already wearing.
Despite the sorrowful distance this creates, there Both Rémi Jacques and Jean-Félix Bélanger
is an unbreakable thread linking their performances, Aaltokoski dancing to Alawad’s oud playing and song, weaving in shades of dabke and flamenco. Alawad’s oud (a kind of lute) sings like a human
voice. Before and in between his pieces, an ominous synthesised soundtrack rumbles and the lighting falls harsh and blue. Aaltokoski clutches his head, spinning, marooned. At the first mournful ripples of the oud, the light changes to warm suntones and his body opens like a flower. Dance culture tends to fetishise youth, and
watching Ali and Alpo you realise what a shame that is. There is no substitute for the experience of an older dancer like Aaltokoski, which pours out like poetry. (Lucy Ribchester) n Summerhall, until 25 Aug (not 19), 1.05pm, £10 (£8).
are trained in Russian clowning, which mixes tragi-comic notes into its farce. Both are natural performers, Bélanger at his best when puppy-eyed in shock or unleashing a torrent of pent-up rage, Jacques when hectoring the audience or gleeful at the thought of something forbidden. He has all the charm and horror of a recalcitrant toddler and is brilliant when trying to pin the blame for his mischief on a hapless crowd member, which then turns into a messy and climactic extravaganza. But shortly after this, the show starts to drag, and the build up to a doomed blind date has a long set up for a fleeting punchline. A snappier paring down would allow more concentrated laughs and pathos. (Lucy Ribchester) n Underbelly’s Circus Hub, until 24 Aug (not 20), 2pm, £12.50–£15 (£11.50–£14).
SUPER HUMAN Skilled street-style dancers in urban light entertainment ●●●●●
Choreographer Lene Boel, of Danish company Next Zone, has commandeered a handful of young urban male dancers – and only one female, alas – in order to focus on what the human body of the future might be able to do. It’s a workable premise for a watchable piece of street-style light entertainment, jazzed-up with lurid, attention-grabbing lighting. Displays of hip hop and related popular movement
prompted by superhero behaviour is hardly new and, even at 45 minutes long, this show struggles to sustain that concept. Boel probably realises there’s only so much pumped-up razzmatazz that can be tolerated, so she has the cast trot through a typical day: commuting to work on public transport; partying hard afterwards; playing with devices. It’s familiar material, but the physical illustration of the clichés of contemporary city life lets some welcome air into the show. We see, too, that the dancers have a sense of humour about themselves. They are a genuinely talented group, although better individually than in the strait-jacketing routines. Still, it’s all here: popping, gyroscopic body spins, robotic motion and more. Recommended for street dance connoisseurs. (Donald Hutera) n ZOO Southside, until 17 Aug, 5.30pm, £14 (£12).
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KNOT Magnificent circus duet from performers Nikki and JD ●●●●●
There are many different kinds of love all tangled up in the threads of this duet from circus performers Nikki Rummer and JD Broussé: romantic, erotic, filial, parental, platonic, professional.
To say more than that about how the love-knots are unpicked
would be to give too much of the game away. But this is a piece that will certainly challenge your perceptions of ordinary relationships and how one kind of relationship can nurture or smother another. The show is put together in the modish dance theatre style of
casual deadpan monologues – delivered close enough to the mic to hear each breath and swallow – interspersed with dance. But both performers are endearingly candid enough to stop their patter from feeling like a gimmick. They are sweet and shy as they tell us how they met. Rummer lists an increasingly aggressive shopping list of what she looks for in a man; Broussé makes mumbling excuses for standing her up on an early date. The rapport they set up makes their later petulant assertions that they can live without the other wry and charming.
And then there are their circus and dance passages. As
expressions of love – trusting, soulful, bickering and sometimes declarations of open war – they are magnificently choreographed and blindingly performed, full of wisdom and wit, segueing seamlessly from expressive dance to awesome balances and drops. At one point Rummer climbs Broussé’s body like a spiral staircase, ending up on his head in a display of such intensity you feel as if they must be joined at the soul. Later, when this is gender-reversed almost entirely, it is a tremendous statement of equality and strength. Is there a word for the love an audience can feel towards two
circus performers? If not, there ought to be. (Lucy Ribchester) n Assembly Roxy, until 25 Aug (not 20), 2.45pm, £12–£14. (£11–£13).
14–26 Aug 2019 THE LIST FESTIVAL 65