Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Mending Nets
Janis Mackay and Nada Shawa
Genre: Movement, Spoken Word, Storytelling
Venue: The Scottish Storytelling Centre
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Poetry, music dance and storytelling are blended together to create a lyrical exploration of displacement, migration and the impact of conflict on everyday lives. Mending Nets is a bringing together of two cultures – Scots and Palestinian – and the Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh is a fitting home to celebrate this.
Review
Janis Mackay and Nada Shawa, two performance artists who met through dance in Edinburgh, have produced a show linking their common cultural experiences. Mackay is a Scot and Shaw a Palestinian by birth. Migration, loss, the healing balm of nature, longing are woven here into a tapestry of soft hues and cloths, with the occasional spiky thistle. “Every nest we try to build is torn to shreds” is one line from a Shawa poem.
They dance together in a Dabke and a Ceilidh, and apart as free form soloists, take turns at reciting their own words and that of other poets, the sound track is both Scottish and Palestinian ‘folk’, familiar tunes and others less so. Their two cultures are reflected also in their stage clothes and in the material used as a simple backcloth, the use of red perhaps a subtle nod to traditional symbols of resistance and revolution.
What Shawa and Mackay have achieved is an interesting curation and collation of many different texts and pieces of music across genres. More attention needs to be paid to changes of pace and dynamics; like a piece of music, performances like these need light and shade (not just in the material). At times the lyricism of movement and lilting delivery became a little whimsical which robbed some of the strength from the pieces chosen. Poems which contain lines such as “our killing should not be our only story” deserve to be part of a show with more heft.
A query as to why the fable (adapted from the Arabian Nights) was a significant chunk of the show; it’s length sat uncomfortably with the other shorter segments, although the dance interludes did soften this. Another option is to consider using it as a framing device, it incorporates the theme of the show afterall – mending nets.
If you haven’t visited The Scottish Storytelling Centre on the HIgh Street (bottom end of the Royal Mile) then check out this haven in the bustling Festival City. It hosts the Scottish International Storytelling Festival which commissioned this show, and is part of the centre’s important role in keeping traditional arts alive. A plea to these commissioners to work with artists on improving accessibility to their shows. Storytelling is a medium that is ripe for captioning, improving the access for diverse audiences. The set list was a much appreciated resource as it listed the many pieces feature – have it in larger font for the age profile of your audience!
Mending Nets is a gentle show, perfect for lunchtime respite, a chance to hear some familiar words and music as well appreciate the less well-known from two different cultures, meeting through their stories.
