Fringe dance and physical theatre reviews: No Sugar No Milk | Sàng Tsáu | The Genesis

No Sugar No Milk (Prototyping) ★★★★

Assembly George Square Studios (Venue 17) until 17 August

TS Crew turns the hospitality sector into an extreme sport in No Sugar No Milk (Prototyping), an uproarious show blending physical theatre, martial arts, dance, and circus. Set in a Hong Kong diner, the story-world is the main feature, here, not the story itself, as the company evokes a range of artistic practices, legacies, and traditions, as waiters who make their own fun after a slow start to the workday.

Beatboxing battles prove immensely entertaining (during this performance, the company harmonises with a ringtone that sounds unexpectedly from the stalls), interleaving more dramatic scenes such as fight sequences, ensuring continual energy and variety throughout. Through this, the piece exudes a cartoonish kind of joy, tempered only by quietly mesmerising displays of juggling and acrobatics.

Opportunities for audience interaction could be extended – currently, one audience member is introduced onstage for a limited time, tasked with ordering an item from the menu – and this intersects with the discovery of a mouse, which is an otherwise notable plot-point. When mousetraps, which also double as circus props, increase in size, the company seems just short of causing major damage to both the set and the building itself, adding to the overall sense of danger created through lifts and balances.

In a knowing departure from more high-octane scenes which are enough to acquaint one’s heart with one’s throat, TS Crew makes excellent use of the space, as a series of stunts conclude in an inspection of the lighting rig. Finally, a bubble machine prefaces a crystal ball routine, where one performer makes the crystal glide and float of its own accord. The lights go out, the smell of fresh bread wafts in from the wings, and when the crystal glows, becoming opaque, for a moment he holds the Moon in his hands.

Josephine Balfour-Oatts

Sàng Tsáu ★★★

theSpace @ Niddry St (Venue 9) until 19 August

Part of the 2025 Asia Base programme comprising six performance companies hailing from Hong Kong and Taiwan, Sàng Tsáu is created by Hsu Chen Wei Dance Company and tells the story of two deities who unite to bring peace and blessings to the world. The dancers retreat into the space as if blown in on the wind. Dressed in yellow and green silk, the pair slips quickly into a gripping duet that is both delicate and dynamic.

The pair utilise speed and slowness with balances and lifts, and impress through displays of flexibility, stamina, and acrobatics, which are clearly technically demanding but appear effortless. The company makes effective use of the space, though they could exercise greater immediacy in their employment of light and sound effects to match the energy of the dancers.

The piece does have a warning for audience participation; however, more apprehensive theatregoers can rest assured that the most involved one can become in Sàng Tsáu is through fleeting instances of intense eye contact. Aside from that, it is simply one’s attention that will partake in this performance, which only runs for 30 minutes, but that one wishes could continue for longer.

Jospehine Balfour-Oatts

The Genesis ★★★

Assembly Hall (Venue 35) until 25 August

With Australia and Canada dominating contemporary circus, it’s exciting to see a brand new European company arrive on the scene. Not only that, but the Copenhagen Collective can more than hold its own next to the major players. There are no weak links in this Denmark-based troupe, with fearless performers from around the world coming together to conjoin their talent and skill.

Watching them build a four-high people tower, that gently falls sideways as if in slow motion, is thrilling. So too the leaps and leans, often landing and standing on people’s chests rather than shoulders. As is increasingly the case in circus, they also have impressively strong female ‘bases’, holding up an eye-watering amount of human weight.

There’s also something special about the sheer size of the Copenhagen Collective, with 16 acrobats covering the stage in multiple towers, synchronised flips and tumbles. Yet despite the incredible toolbox they had to play with, the show’s creators have stuffed The Genesis with filler. So much time is spent wandering around, they start to look like a company in search of a show. We don’t need back-to-back tricks, but an engaging central conceit (which this show lacks) goes a long way.

Kelly Apter

Elements at theSpace | Paige Luisa Dance Company

Elements ★★★

theSpace@ Surgeons’ Hall (Venue 53) until 16 August

These recent graduates from the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts made a splash at last year’s Fringe with their atmospheric take on the film Midsommar. While this year’s show doesn’t quite match the theatricality of their last endeavour, there is still much to enjoy.

Choreographer Paige Luisa Sinclair was inspired by the four natural elements, and so we find the 5-strong ensemble working its way through air, water, fire and earth. Dressed in designer Charlotte Grace’s beautiful costumes, the performers have an ethereal presence that lends itself perfectly to the theme. If the delineation between the elements is a little hazy in places, often bending into each other, the dancers’ commitment remains razor sharp.

Drawn largely from the contemporary dance toolbox, Sinclair’s movement is gentle and sweeping with a confident lightness of touch. Occasionally, she dips into other styles, with krump-like chest pops giving the piece some well-placed bite. A length of blue chiffon stretched around the dancers and over them, could have been put to better use. While more interaction between the dancers would have helped the piece gather emotional momentum. But this is just the start of Sinclair’s journey, and one well worth joining her on.

Kelly Apter

Small Town Boys ★★

ZOO Southside (Venue 82) until 17 August

A jukebox dance piece featuring the greatest hits of the 1980s – Patrick Crowley, Dead or Alive, Margaret Thatcher on Section 28 – Small Town Boys brings the eponymous Bronski Beat song to life, following a young gay man who finds solace in a queer community during the AIDS crisis.

There’s real heart behind this production, but not a great deal of subtlety: insults are painted on dancers’ bodies, there’s a dance with inflated condoms, and the choreography set to archival footage is literal rather than interpretative. The result is a sweet but clichéd narrative that doesn’t add much to what Bronski Beat already did.

Anahit Behrooz

Waxen Figures ★★

Summerhall (Venue 26) until 15 August

This experimental show from Glasgow-based duo Muto Major – Samm Anga and Veronica Patukhov – seeks to re-examine ancient Scottish myths with innovative modern technology, but it comes across as overstuffed, incoherent and impenetrable.

Over an hour, four performers – two of whom spend most of the show hunched over laptops – weave together Gaelic singing, ritualistic ceremony, abstract music, and contemporary dance, against an evolving projection of fractured film and fidgety animation, while two hi-tech lasers – dangerous apparently – trace electric lines behind them.

At times, it achieves an ethereal, atmospheric beauty. Mostly, it is unintelligible overkill.

Fergus Morgan