Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Yes-Ya-Yebo!
The Imibala Trust
Genre: Dance, Musical Theatre
Venue: Laughing Horse @ The Counting House
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
A smorgasbord of entertainment with a rickety structure but one which acts as a platform. On that platform exudes happiness. To be there, to share, to dance, sing and entertain. Singing with no amplification and filling a room, dancing with great joy and filling you heart – and part of the Free Festival – you would be a fool to miss it.
Review
Eight youthful and exuberant performers from South Africa have been brought from a place which inspires fear to Edinburgh to dance. They bring with them the cheek of youth and the knowledge of experience. All of them are under 25 years of age, their youngest is 17, and with such vitality they just dance. And I mean dance. They dance like their lives have depended upon it and thanks to the Imibala Trust, that might be true as they have been taken from real threat. They took themselves away from the troubles which were all around them and have come to know the joy of creativity and its opportunity.
OK, so interspersed with the dance and some of the explanations are the stories to tug on your heart strings but this the fully formed expressive moment which makes it all sing with expectation and joy. I counted, in just under an hour, about 30 different examples of dance. Some of them are snippets but all of them have a youthful enthusiasm – these are kids dancing like their lives depended upon it and hoping that everyone notices!
And so, we began outside where one of them came to give out contact details for the company where we could go online thanks to a QR code and look at our performers and their profiles. Then we arrived in a non-descript and plain room with chairs which had a young woman at the back dressed in a wonderful orange dress was seated. Once we were seated, she was up and singing with a spotlight shining. Nothing was amplified and the rawness was its passionate secret. The harmonies, added to the solo performers, were pitched perfectly. Once she had introduced us to our evening and herself, we got that cheeky young chap from outside who came onstage to introduce the different languages of his country. It was a hint at what was to come as we then sashayed our way through dances from Venda, Tswana, Afrikaans, Zulu, Sesotho, a song of the coal mines – reminiscent of a tin can dance I saw once being taught in Glasgow that I was told came from Soweto – and so much more.
I was entranced. My daughter, a dancer, was too. She lives too far away from Edinburgh to take advantage of the lessons on offer during their run but it was a lesson in steps and poise for her, in laughter and joy for me. As a man of a certain age who has a view of South Africa which is old and should be long forgotten this focused my attention on the new country with voices that demand to be listened to whilst reminding us of the poverty in their townships and communities. This is not a pity party but a celebration of more than survival – of incredible joy in dance. They perform above their years with an attention to pace which slows when they need to make a point but also never drops when they want to show off their abilities and dance.
And so, I loved their catwalk, the wedding dance and the old coal miners and I laughed out loud when they suggested that they all spoke Scots! This was pitch perfect work that also included short sketches to accompany their dances which included the birth of a child and a Safari Camp piece showing they were older than their years. They were more mature than the old fellas who held their country down so much in the past. There was just simply onstage. Joy. It was terrific. But don’t just believe an old man – just go and see for yourself. As part of the Free Fringe, you will not be disappointed, though you might want to contribute your life savings – they have already contributed the equivalent in themselves.
