Edinburgh International Festival reviews: Ihsane | corto.alto | Kleio Quartet, Makoto Ozone & Sheku Kanneh-Mason

Ihsane being performed at Festival Theatre for the Edinburgh International Festival | Jess Shurte

DANCE

Ihsane ★★★★★

Festival Theatre, until 20 August

Writing a short review of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Ihsane feels like doing it a disservice. A piece this rich in cultural detail, socio-political comment, personal loss, musical nuance, and design as multi-layered as it is beautiful, feels worthy of a PhD. Over the course of 100 minutes, Cherkaoui pulls together so many threads, there are inevitable moments of incoherence (to us at least, certainly not to him). To complain about this, however, feels like condemning an abstract painter for not being more literal. Cherkaoui is an artist, the stage his canvas, and we are lucky observers as he blends colours to build this complex celebration of North African and Middle Eastern culture.

Cherkaoui’s starting point for Ihsane was a need to mourn his father’s death, an event which took place over 30 years ago, but (having not attended his funeral) felt like unfinished business. A second layer captures the horrific homophobic murder of Ihsane Jarfi in 2012; a man who, like Cherkaoui, is of Belgian/Moroccan heritage. Here, the show becomes factual, with video capturing a vibrant Jarfi, a voiceover telling us he was assaulted for 50 long minutes, and a scene where one dancer brutalises another.

There is also archive footage of an undisclosed town reduced to rubble and lifeless bodies, a large hand dripping with blood, and various flags. For the most part, however, Cherkaoui works with metaphor and symbolism. Red rugs become shrouds, sand is poured as time passes, ash falls from above coating everyone in the deaths we all carry, and much, much more. At one point, the floor is awash with stunning projections as the dancers swirl (apparently not visible from the stalls, unfortunately).

All the while, 18 dancers and five musicians give body and soul to Cherkaouis’ and composer Jasser Haj Youssef’s vision, creating one unforgettable image after another. Kelly Apter

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MUSIC

corto.alto ★★★★

The Hub

You’re never quite sure what will hit you next at a corto.alto gig, except that it will be a riveting fusion of jazz improvisation with cellar-shaking electronic beats, and sometimes weird sampled sounds (think sci-fi goes clubbing). corto.alto, aka award-winning trombonist, multi-instrumentalist and “nu jazz” pioneer Liam Shortall, distilled his collective from Glasgow’s brimming jazz crucible – Fergus McCreadie on keyboards, Mateusz Sobieski on tenor saxophone, guitarist James Mackay and drummer Graham Costello.

Presiding at a console, Shortall switched deftly between trombone and bass guitar, the opening Thief setting the template for walloping beats and pulses over which he and Sobieski soloed or chorused imperiously. Sampled vocals of Ice Spice flitted through one number while Justin Bieber’s Yukon got the treatment, giving the impression of a clamorous soundworld haunted by ghost vocalists.

In bizarre contrast, McCreadie, in a solo spot, came out with one of his serene Scots pastoral jazz pieces. He left the stage for Vaquita, which may have been inspired by a diminutive, endangered porpoise, but featured whale-sized grooves and resounding tenor sax from Sobieski.

Latency saw swirling keyboards and a querulous trombone excursion while their closing number, Chubbby, took in a howling guitar break and serious drum solo, bringing the house down, figuratively, at least. Jim Gilchrist

MUSIC

Kleio Quartet, Makoto Ozone & Sheku Kanneh-Mason ★★★★

Queen’s Hall

With plenty to say, and the means with which to say it, the UK-based Kleio Quartet are pretty much everything you could hope for in a young chamber ensemble. First violinist Yume Fujise admitted she’d thought their International Festival recital was a “crazy idea”, and in terms of sheer ambition, musical mountain-climbing and the all stamina and skills required, she wasn’t wrong. Plus it gave the Kleio foursome a chance to team up with two high-profile collaborators.

Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason merged beautifully into the Quartet’s rich but focused sound world for Schubert’s String Quintet, and clearly also bought into their high-contrast approach to the piece: the composer’s song-like melodies soared in wistful joy, while his stormier music roared and throbbed. It might have been a bit much at times, but there was no doubting the ensemble’s dramatic intent, nor its thoroughly characterful playing.

The concert’s real discovery, though, was Bartok’s early Piano Quintet: joined by sometimes thunderous pianist Makoto Ozone, the Kleios navigated a convincing course between the piece’s lush Romanticism and its more forward-looking piquancy, making a very strong case for the little-known work in the process. And their surging, whirling Magyar dance of a finale - delivered with somewhat gritted-teeth conviction - almost brought the house down. David Kettle

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