Edinburgh Fringe dance reviews: Lewis Major: Triptych | What songs may do... | Transhumanist | Éowyn Emerald & Dancers

The captivating and emotional Lewis Major: Triptych is a triumph from beginning to end while What songs may do... is a stirring rumination on love set to the music of Nina Simone

Lewis Major's Triptych | Chris Herzfeld

DANCE, PHYSICAL THEATRE & CIRCUS

Assembly @ Dance Base (Venue 22)

Lewis Major: Triptych until 25 August ★★★★★

What songs may do... until 11 August ★★★★

Transhumanist until 25 August ★★★★

Éowyn Emerald & Dancers until 11 August ★★★

If you’re a dance fan and haven’t yet done so, stop what you’re doing and book your tickets for Lewis Major’s Triptych. This beautiful work from Australia will plant itself in your memory and bloom each time you remember it. Despite its title, there are in fact four discrete works to savour here, each of them taking the relationship between choreography and lighting design to a new level. Opening with Russell Malipant’s Two x Three, we find the dancers standing alone in brightly lit squares. This is our introduction to Clementine Benson, Elsi Faulks and Stefaan Morrow, three captivating, classically trained performers whose bodies radiate emotion.

Unfolding, choreographed by Major himself, is quite possibly the most striking symbiosis of light and movement I’ve ever seen. Slicing the air like shards of glass or glistening rain, the lighting hits the floor in honeycomb-like patterns. Stepping inside the glow, the four dancers (now joined by Macon Riley) bathe in its beauty, their bodies twisting and turning, drawing each other close. A change in costuming transforms them into living sculptures and it’s nothing less than breathtaking. Finally, Epilogue - a work in two parts and also choreographed by Major - gifts us an impassioned duet and delicate yet powerful solo. A triumph from start to finish.

Also worthy of mention (although completely sold out, and unfair to review as each experience will be completely different) is Lien. Created by Major during the pandemic, this improvised solo is danced for one audience member at a time, based on a brief conversation you share beforehand. My dancer was Morrow, and it will stay with me forever.

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Music often plays an important role in creating tenderness and tension in dance, but for What songs may do... it’s absolutely crucial. Dancers Oliver Chapman and Paolo Pisarra may be the only ones on stage, but Nina Simone - whose music they use throughout - is with them in spirit. Her voice (speaking and singing), the way her fingers pound the piano keys, and the words she sings, all conspire to help shape this love duet.

Mathieu Geffré’s choreography doesn’t shy away from the complexities of love, giving Chapman and Pisarra licence to feel anger, frustration, insecurity, passion and adoration as their relationship changes over time. Newcastle-based Geffré created the piece to address the lack of diversity in love stories on stage, and after being heavily inspired by the emotion in Simone’s infamous live rendition of ‘Feelings’ in Montreux. Seeing these two performers not just physically close but living out the everyday moments of domestic and romantic life without fanfare, it feels like Geffré achieved his aim.

Popping and locking are usually associated with the bold showmanship of streetdance and hip hop. But Transhumanist by Danish company Next Zone, takes it in an alternate direction. The dancers, Martin Karlshøj and Malthe Ørsted, move as we would expect from a work like this, but with more subtlety. For although their chests pulsate with such intensity it’s almost like there’s something hidden inside, and their legs cross the space robotically, we know there’s more at play here. This isn’t good time streetdance, more a cerebral interrogation of humanity and artificial intelligence, of where one ends and the next begins.

The piece opens with one dancer standing alone centre-stage. His loose-fitting outfit, bright white and cream, feels impersonal and identikit, as if he’s not the only one of his type in this futuristic world. Staring intently straight ahead, he begins to move to an electronic soundscape so heavy, you can feel the vibration beneath your feet. Is he real or some kind of android? When another dancer arrives, wearing the same costume and demeanour, the otherworldliness is compounded. Except now there is the possibility of connection and exchange as the two men come together. And by the end, a kind of unexpected beauty has arrived.

Canadian choreographer Éowyn Emerald is no stranger to the Fringe, bringing heartfelt, very human works that always entertain. This year’s offering, Your Tomorrow is no different, although some aspects are stronger than others. Dancers Katie Armstrong and Jack Anderson imbue their movement with a real sense of characterisation and purpose. To a backdrop of jazz standards by Ella Fitzgerald, Dave Brubeck and Count Basie we watch them meet, fall in love, argue and reconnect. At times, the aesthetic moves in other directions, the soundtrack switching to The Chemical Brothers and Arcade Fire, but the passion between these two lovers never waivers.

Emerald’s decision to shape the whole piece around Ferrero Rocher (yes, you heard right) is slightly confusing, however. A suitcase full of them comes into play, used in myriad ways, none of which serve the narrative and, if anything, distract from it. As we try to lose ourselves in Emerald’s sweeping choreography and the dancers’ deft execution, the sound of chocolate skittering across the stage (or our minds constantly asking ‘I wonder if they’re going to step on that’) takes us away from what could be an absorbing performance.