Articles by Stephanie Green

The Secret Theatre

Where is the glitter and magic, our annual Christmas treat, without the Sugar Plum Fairy or the Snow Queen? With theatre doors closed during these sad times, Scottish Ballet have c…

Virtual Dance: Taiwan Season 2020

Feature
Stephanie Green
Edinburgh Fringe
7th Aug, 2020

From August 4 to 28, the Taiwan Season will be presenting Online Symposium: ‘Connecting with Taiwan’.

Antigone, Interrupted

Experimental, inventive and hugely daring, Antigone, Interrupted is Sophocles re-imagined, the first production by Joan Clevillé since becoming Artistic Director of Sc…

Scottish Ballet: The Snow Queen

A wintry tale of fire and ice where selfless love wins, The Snow Queen, choreographed by Christopher Hampson, is a dangerous journey encountering bandits and snow creatures.

An Edinburgh Christmas Carol

Full of good cheer, fun and jokes, carols under falling snow, spooky ghosts and glitter, what better way to get into the Christmas spirit than go to An Edinburgh Christmas Carol, D…

Rite of Spring

Luscious colours, hypnotic dance, the exotic (to westerners) Chinese/Tibetan interpretation of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring should make Yang Liping’s Peacock Contemporary Dance …

Juliet & Romeo

Both humourous and sad, Juliet and Romeo by Lost Dog company, presented by The Place, written with sensitive forensic analysis and directed by Ben Duke, is a subversion of Shakespe…

Hear Word! Naija Woman Talk True

"Hear Word!" is how Nigerians start a story, a sort of town crier’s call and Hear Word! Naija Woman Talk True co-written and directed by Ifeoma Fafunwa is definitely at…

Hard to Be Soft: A Belfast Prayer

Hard to be Soft: A Belfast Prayer choreographed and directed by Oona Doherty is at times an explosive, visceral and overwhelming experience.

The Hospital

A brilliant Scandi noir of the psyche, spoken in gibberish in a surreal world, Norwegian Jo Strømgren Kompani’s The Hospital, is gripping; moving from bizarre, black humour to d…

Looping: Scotland Overdub

Billed as part Brazilian street dance and part Scottish ceilidhe with everyone invited to share the dance floor and a whisky, this suggested a rather more joyful, carnivalesque exp…

Body Language by David Bolger and Christopher Ash

If you have ever wondered how contemporary dance choreography is created (as opposed to classical ballet) this fascinating show, CoisCéim Dance Theatre’s Body Language directed …

Red Dust Road

Jackie Kay’s memoir Red Dust Road, adapted for the stage by Tanika Gupta, is a huge disappointment.

Oedipus

White hot, stripped down to its essentials, this searing version of Sophocles’ Oedipus, adapted and directed by Robert Icke may well be the defining drama for our times, where f…

Heroes

What a delight to hear the giggles and laughter, sometimes hysterical, of children, aged four and up in the audience throughout Heroes, a circus, acrobatics and aerial dance show a…

The Secret River

Who owns the land? What if the land you think is yours already ‘belongs’ to someone else? The tragedy that is Australian history, the encounter between the ‘savages’ and th…

Kalakuta Republik

Kalakuta Republik will stay with you, for good or bad.

The Chosen

How do we face dying if we know we have a terminal illness? And also how do we live in the face of death, imminent or not? Losing several friends in the same year, Kally Lloyd-Jo…

From the Top

A delight, witty but profound exploration of the power relationship between choreographer and dancers, From the Top, choreographed by Hong Kong-based Victor Fung, is a send-up of a…

And the Birds Did Sing

Christine Devaney’s And the Birds Did Sing is a gentle, moving meditation on the loss of her father, expressed through story-telling and some expressive physical movement to an e…

Taiwan Season: Monster

Monster choreographed and performed by Yen-Cheng Liu of Dua Shin Te Production is a show about the monster within us but the trouble with alienation is that it alienates the audien…

Blizzard

Breath-taking, Blizzard produced by Flip Fabrique from Quebec, is so much more than a circus show.

Another

Another is a quadruple selection of dance pieces by the fledgling company Ballet-works founded by a former soloist of Stuttgart Ballet, Robert Robertson and comprises both contempo…

Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools

Kiinalik, in the Inuktitut language, means when a knife is sharp.

The Crucible

Stunning, visceral and heart-breaking, pitting light against dark, superstition and hysteria against the steady flame of truth and love, Scottish Ballet’s The Crucible choreograp…

Steve Reich Project

If this was billed as Music and took place in a concert hall, the MP4 Quartet’s perfomance of three pieces by Steve Reich, Pendulum Music, Different Trains and WC 9/11 would earn…

BOBBY WINNER

Taiwan Season: Floating Flowers

Floating Flowers by B.

A landmark for female empowerment, She Persisted is a trilogy by three female choreographers celebrating female icons. Following on from She Said in 2016, they are part of the Artistic Director Tamara Rojo’s aim to promote female choreographers…

Scottish Ballet Cinderella

Review
★★★★
Stephanie Green
Scotland
Multiple Venues
11th Dec, 2018

Stylish, elegant and magical, Scottish Ballet's Cinderella, choreographed by Christopher Hampson, at times takes one's breath away. Its sheer beauty glitters all the more for its undercurrent of grief and loss contrasting with bursts of hilarity, echoing wonderfully the depth and humour of Prokofiev's score…

Wendy and Peter Pan

Rumbustious, fast, furious and funny, yet full of magic and fairy dust, Wendy and Peter Pan will delight all ages: an awfully big adventure and the perfect Christmas show. It is also a new version of J M Barrie’s well-loved play, adapted by Ella Hickson and directed by Eleanor Rhode, which re-imagines gender roles (the swopping round of names in the title is no typing mistake) and also re-interprets the theme of "Lost Boys", the theme of mortality adding poignancy and depth…

Autobiography

Blinding with science comes to mind in Autobiography, choreographed by Wayne McGregor. Startling dance, breath-taking in its precision and complexity this piece, inspired by the structure of the human genome and specifically McGregor's own, is almost impenetrable in meaning...

Love Cycle: Love Chapter 2

Love Chapter 2 by L-E-V, choreographed by Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar, is a twin-piece to OCD Love, both part of the Edinburgh International Festival. Whereas OCD Love is mesmerising and expresses a deep psychological understanding of the mental disorder, the meaning of this follow-up is so opaque, the movements so repetitive and obscure, its effect is soporific...

Love Cycle: OCD Love

A profoundly disturbing show, OCD Love (part one of Love Cycle) is produced by Israeli L-E-V dance company with original and technically difficult choreography by Sharon Eyal in collaboration with Gai Behar and influenced by his background as a DJ...

Hocus Pocus

Hocus Pocus, by the Philippe Saire company, didn't live up to its initial promise. This is an ultra-violet light show performed by two live dancers, aimed at adults and children (7+)...

Taiwan Season: Once Upon a Daydream

Once Upon a Daydream, produced by Sun Son Theatre, bursts with life and colour. A show which will appeal to adults and children alike (four upwards). Live actors and musicians on stage interact and slide in and out of the fantasy world of a lonely young girl in pursuit of love...

Tibetan Monks Sacred Dance

Tibetan Monks Sacred Dance is a special experience, not quite a religious rite and not quite a performance show as five Tibetan monks from the Tashi Lunpo Monastery in South India exiled from Tibet give a taster of their ceremonies, prayer, chanting and sacred dance...

Single Life

Every now and then a sparkling gem comes bubbling to the surface of the Fringe. The energy in this effervescent dance and story-telling show, Single Life is sheer delight. Pirita Tuisku the choreographer, based in both Finland and Edinburgh, and Christine Liddell, Scotland-based, are a well-balanced duo, giving us a glimpse into the world of internet dating...

WRoNGHEADED

WRoNGHEADED is a collaborative dance, poetry and film piece produced by Liz Roche Company about the devastating effects of a repressive society in Ireland, particularly on women. Although this show was devised before the recent repeal of the 8th amendment to the constitution concerning abortion, many issues remain and WRoNGHEADED is still hugely relevant...

Jungle

Jungle by the Bernese company Pink Mama under the direction of Slawek Bendraf and Dominik Krawiecki, purports to be about post-colonialism and in particular who survives but how does it relate to post-colonialim? Search me...

Giselle

This version of Giselle, re-imagined by Ballet Ireland in modern dress is bound to cause controversy between traditionalists and modernists. You may love it or hate it but this reviewer falls some way in-between, loving much of the Gothic second act, but finding fault with the first act's uneasy balance of realism and classical dance...

Taiwan Season: Bon 4 Bon

This exquisite, delightful show by Chang Dance Theatre riffs on the childhood memories of four boys growing up together and, surprisingly, mangoes. Growing out of improvisation and choreographed by Israeli Eyal Dadon, it has a charming intimacy surely only achieved because it was created by and is performed by the four brothers themselves: Chien Hao Chang, Chien Chih Chang, Chien Kuei Chang and Ho Chien Chang who also founded the company...

This Is the Title

A dazzling white floor space sets off Nigerian/Finnish Ima Iduozee’s black skin and his grey and black outfit perfectly in This Is The Title, a production in association with From Start to Finnish...

The Spinners

The Spinners is a collaboration between Lina Limosani of Limosani Projekts as choreographer and Al Seed as director. Readers may remember Al Seed’s tremendous physical theatre show Oog from the 2015 Edinburgh Festival Fringe...

It’s Not Over Yet... and How to Survive the Future

It’s Not Over Yet… choreographed and performed by Emma Jayne Park (aka Cultured Mongrel) is a heart-stopping autobiographical show about cancer. A brave subject for a cancer survivor to perform but also a show which will take some bravery to watch if you have experienced cancer or know someone undergoing treatment, or who may have lost the battle...

Taiwan Season: Varhung – Heart to Heart

Varhung- Heart to Heart will touch your heart. A mesmerizing experience of exquisitely melded indigenous and contemporary dance, it is choreographed by Baru Madiljin of Tjimur Dance Theatre, whose explicit aim is to preserve and transform the Taiwanese minority Paiwan people’s culture into an expressive body language for today...

To Be Me

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Dance Base
28th Aug, 2017

To Be Me pairs a recording of Kate Tempest’s poetry and live dance choreographed by Julie Cunningham; it’s a risky undertaking which is both fascinating but, at times, teeters on the edge of not working...

Lear

Review
★★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Dance Base
25th Aug, 2017

It is brave to reimagine Shakespeare, in particular arguably his greatest tragedy but Lear by John Scott Dance is a deeply moving, subtle and superbly performed interpretation of Shakespeare’s play through physical theatre, dance, speech and fragments of text focusing in modern terms onhow we treat old age and dementia...

Here Comes Trouble

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Dance Base
25th Aug, 2017

Keira Martin’s Here Comes Trouble contains some impressively executed Irish dancing to music which is a meld of Irish melodies and Jamaican beats in a memorable piece about identity...

Profundis

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Zoo Southside
22nd Aug, 2017

Profundis choreographed by Israeli-born Roy Assaf, is amusingly and slickly performed by the National Dance Company Wales but is more of a ‘five-finger exercise’ for dance students; a mind-game with much mime and posing with very little dance...

Folk

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Zoo Southside
21st Aug, 2017

Folk is Caroline Finn’s first piece for the Cardiff-based National Dance Company Wales since becoming its Artistic Director two years ago. It is a hugely exciting, surreal if somewhat incoherent show but that is probably the point since it aims to explore social dynamics which, in this show, appear to be largely dysfunctional...

Hope Hunt and the Ascension into Lazarus

Review
★★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Dance Base
20th Aug, 2017

A double-bill of extraordinary power and originality, Hope Hunt & The Ascension into Lazarus performed by Belfast-based Oona Doherty, gets beneath the hard exterior of disaffected youths to the humanity beneath in a show which achieves the hard act of being visceral and in-yer-face but also tender...

Mind-Goblin

Review
★
Edinburgh Fringe
Dance Base
20th Aug, 2017

Thisis a solo show where the Korean dancer and choreographer Lee Kyung-eun, inspired by the shamanic gut or rite to expel ‘goblins’ or evil spirits, aims to turn this around and suggest that acceptance of all sides of our psyche is better, thus balancing yin and yang...

Dollhouse

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Dance Base
18th Aug, 2017

This is a curate’s egg of a show. Amusing, brilliant, at times too slow and self-indulgent and at others, riveting, Dollhouse is performance art and avant garde music which is usually seen presented more often in an art school student event rather than a dance centre...

Green Knight

A one-woman dramatic monologue performed with great storytelling skills, Green Knight is an enthralling show. Debbie Cannon, the writer and actor, holds the audience in the palm of her hand as she takes the well-known mediaeval story, full of magical ‘fairie’ set at the time of King Arthur, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and re-tells it from Gawain’s would-be seducer’s point of view with a great blend of drama, humour and atmosphere created by scene-setting mediaeval music...

Taiwan Season: The Backyard Story

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Summerhall
13th Aug, 2017

The Backyard Story, directed by Chen-Chieh Sun with lively music composed by Chien-Hsun Chen, is a charming black-light theatre show for children aged 5+. It features two human neighbours who are spiteful to each other as they try to rival each other’s colourful clothes on a washing-line...

Majuli

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Dance Base
13th Aug, 2017

Majuli is a gentle piece, beguiling in its simplicity in which the dancer and choreographer, Shilpikda Bordoloi evokes the world’s largest river island, Majuli in Assam’s Brahmaputra river and the islanders’ way of life, dependent on the river, its fertility and at the mercy of its destructive flooding when the villagers lose their homes and must learn to start again...

After 4 – Over the Moon

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Zoo Southside
12th Aug, 2017

In Korea when somebody dies, people say they have gone ‘over the moon’ or ‘crossed the river’. Yoo Sun-Hoo, the choreographer and dancer of After 4: Over The Moon has used these metaphors to inspire a beautifully poetic and sensitive dance meditation on death accompanied by four live musicians on stage playing a variety of traditional and electronic instruments and composed by the contra-bass player, JC Curve...

Kokdu: The Soul Mate

Review
★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Assembly Hall
11th Aug, 2017

Kokdu: Soul Mate is physical theatre with charm, humour and a supernatural frisson inspired by Korean shamanistic rites and belief in the Kokdu, a spirit guide who accompanies the deceased to the afterlife...

Last Clown on Earth

Derevo are a legend. This is not clowning Coco-style, but dark, surreal and dreamlike with an apocalyptic vision tempered by absurd humour and heart-wringing moments of pathos. The company have been coming to the Edinburgh Fringe for 20 years and their latest show, Last Clown On Earth is as weird and magical as word of mouth promised...

Leviathan

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Dance Base
9th Aug, 2017

Leviathan, inspired by Melville’s Moby Dick is choreographed by James Wilton to a pounding score by Lunatic Soul. As a show, it certainly takes some beating for sheer energy with testosterone-fuelled breakdance, capoeira, contemporary dance and wow-factor, but sometimes less is more...

Un Poyo Rojo

If you want a bit of light relief from Fringe shows taking themselves too seriously, come to this hilarious, technically mind-blowing piece which calls itself physical theatre but defies genre...

Taiwan Season: Together Alone

An exquisite piece, Together Alone, danced nude by Zoltán Vakulya and Chen-Wei Lee of Art B&B, is a profound meditation on relationships through a sensitive exploration of the body, its muscular tensions and constraints and the simple joy of its beauty...

Taiwan Season: 038

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Dance Base
7th Aug, 2017

038 is the telephone code for Hualien, a small city on the east coast of Taiwan and it is the first few numbers the many emigrants to the bigger cities must dial to phone home. What is home if you have to leave and what is home when your return is no less fraught? This is the question posed by this group of ten young girls, who have trained together for ten years since the age of ten with Kuo-Shin Chuang and his Pangcah Dance Theatre...

The Humours of Bandon

This show is a delight. Storytelling with a tiny bit of dance taking us behind the scenes of the competition world of Irish dancing. Produced by Fishamble, Dublin’s New Writing theatre, which brought the five star Underneath to Edinburgh in2015, The Humours of Bandon is equally knock-out and Margaret McAuliffe, the writer and performer is a star...

Fall Out

Founded by Avalon Rathgeb, Fall Out is tap-dancing like you’ve never seen before. A spectacular, breath-taking show. Not top hat and tails (though there may be bow-ties), nor cane in hand but with all the flair and charm of Fred Astaire transformed into jazz from Oscar Peterson’s Tin,Tin Deo to Kanye West’s Blame Game performed to a live band on stage...

Lady Macbeth: Unsex Me Here

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Dance Base
6th Aug, 2017

Three male dancers perform Company Chordelia & Solar Bear’s Lady Macbeth: Unsex Me Here choreographed by Kally Lloyd-Jones and cast. Being three, this is a nod to the witches, and that these Lady Macbeths are possessed by evil: cue howling winds, cawing ravens and the wish to be ‘unsexed’...

Taiwan Season: Heart of Darkness

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Summerhall
3rd Aug, 2017

A psychic journey, through physical theatre and music, Sun Son Theatre’s Heart of Darkness explores the damage inflicted on a woman by arranged marriage. Inspired by the choreographer and dancer, Low Pei-Fen’s grandmother – who the males in the family called crazy – this show is a little gem...

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