Edinburgh Fringe Dance reviews: The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave | Ta-Bamm!!! | Soil

The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave

Summerhall (Venue 26)

★★★★☆

The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave starts before you’ve even stepped into the room, with the loud pulse of techno bleeding into the corridor. At the door, someone gives you a wristband; inside, it’s all neon lights and synthetic smoke and three dancers already moving in forceful sync. You may be on the top floor of an old university building at an absurdly respectable time of 6pm but, with the thud of the bassline and the ozonic scent of the smoke machine and the grip of the band tight against your wrist, you may as well – for a moment – be on the Cowgate at the crack of dawn.

The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave | Jinki Cambronero

Theatre centred on the nightclub as a site of pleasure or subversion has a notable presence in this year’s Fringe programme; no surprise, perhaps, given the post-pandemic endangerment of nightlife venues across the globe. The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave strips this back to its purest form: bodies in almost compulsive motion. Set against the relentless techno album Nocturbulous Behaviour by seminal Detroit DJ Suburban Knight, the choreography here is both exact and loose: there’s a propulsive, almost involuntary quality to the dancers’ movements, as if driven by the music rather than any kind of routine. The neon tube lights shift in colour and scope; they, alongside cups of water downed at regular intervals and a tearaway costume change, are the only indications we have of a world beyond these bodies, markers of temporality that quickly melt away.

Here in this darkened room, hypnotised by the intoxicating possibilities of losing yourself in something bigger, there’s a kind of transcendence – out of mind, out of body, out of time – to be found. This is dance theatre as pure ecstasy: with every flash of strobe or anticipated beat drop, a delirious rush of energy that borders on the sublime mounts and mounts.

ANAHIT BEHROOZ

until 25 August

READ MORE: Top seven LGBTQ+ shows to watch at Edinburgh Fringe this year

Ta-Bamm!!! Tap Dance and Marimba

Braw Venues @ Hill Street (Venue 41)

★★★★☆

This funny, technically impressive show is a genuine love letter to percussion. Whether the sounds are being generated by the metal taps on Daniel Borak’s shoes, the keys on Manuel Leuenberger’s marimba, or any number of items around the room, Ta-Bamm!!! hits the right note. Hailing from Switzerland, the duo have clearly spent hours not just honing their individual crafts, but learning to intuit each other. Never is this more obvious than during brief moments of improvisation, when the two men respond instinctively to each other’s every step, note or inflection.

For the most part, however, they work to existing compositions that Leuenberger plays to virtuoso standard. His soft mallets fly over the wooden bars as if they’re working of their own accord, not dependent on the speed and dexterity of the human hand. Meanwhile, Borak’s lightning feet pound the floor with rhythmic precision, sliding like an ice skater or rising onto his toes as if in pointe shoes. If all of this was played out with an air of seriousness and concentration, we would still walk away happy and entertained – but that’s not their style. Both men have a glint of devilment in their eye, always on the lookout for ways to amuse and charm us further.

Without saying a single word, they infuse the show with gentle humour that only serves to make us love them more. One particularly witty moment, when Leuenberger becomes ‘frozen’ and Borak attempts to bring him back to life, is cleverly played out. Nothing is laboured or over-done, no routine, piece or joke outstays its welcome. Just great music and dancing, wrapped up in an accessible package that never dumbs down.

KELLY APTER

until 14 August

Soil

Dance Base (Venue 22)

★★☆☆☆

The seeds for this solo show were sown in fertile land, yet despite the huge pile of mud on the stage, Soil struggles to grow. Danish contemporary dancer/choreographer Sarah Aviaja Hammeken, has spent recent years exploring her Greenlandic heritage, and how language informs our sense of self and connection to others. All of which is ripe material for dance, but her slow-paced movement within the soil never quite reaches a meditative state. While the voiceover about language (during which Hammeken is motionless) is crying out for choreography to pull the audience through an emotional entry point.

KELLY APTER

until 17 August

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