Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Low Down
This group from the Ukraine is highly skilled and refined. They perform a blend of acrobatic dance with juggling and balancing skills – and are well received by the appreciative audience.
Review
The ability to dream is precious. What do we dream about? What do we want to happen? In Reves, artistic choreographed dance sequences are exciting and visceral. Five dancers in white vest, black shorts and long socks come out in misty fog. It’s a beautiful moment.
What is your dream? A voiceover ask us. Rousing classical music plays throughout this show and the dancers integrate various skills in their movement. Each performer enacts their own dream through graceful muscular movement, supported by the others in the ensemble with intricate transitions using all of the space. Holding four white balls the size of a baseball the ensemble moves in synchronized sequences holding the balls before placing them in a pattern on the ground. Their physical expression and well timed coordination around the space and in linear formations is outstanding. The company performs a blend of physical acrobatics and movement with balletic leaps and turns often with outstretched arms as if they are reaching for something.
Very good juggling routines of five balls and up to about eight, I counted, are not only creative in presentation and highly skilled juggling expertise but also very much appreciated by the audience. The dream sequences vary and from based mainly on skills with movement, to another which was witty with a sense of reverie as he floated off in dynamic acrobatic moves.
Playful flashes are fascinating and relatable – perhaps past youthful family moments – or hopes for the future, while they run carrying each other around on piggy backs. In the fog, there is a long rope and a game that quivers between warlike aggression to merely vigorous playtime typical of when we were young and innocent. At times it seemed the sequences repeated and the arc of the show could benefit from more definition and build, which no doubt will develop throughout the run.
One of the ensemble enacts his dream through the voice and physical expression, which is poignant with emotive abstract moves. It is obvious that there are personal challenges underlying current circumstances in this visual and physical storytelling piece. A fascinating highlight is how they find creative ways to bring on the apparatus for the skills, in very inventive and polished transitions . The show includes lyrical muscular circus skills with classical music and dance, with grace and precision. The classical music selections are well-known so you will recognize them and the dramatic and fluid sound works well supporting the different sections. This group from the Ukraine is highly skilled and refined performing a blend of acrobatic dance with juggling and balancing skills and are well received by the appreciative audience.
