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The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave

 
Mark Harding Review by Mark Harding 5 Published: 9 Aug 2025 Summerhall Show Dates: 31 Jul 2025-25 Aug 2025

The title of this show is misleading: it is not so much The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave as a pneumatic road drill challenging the Olympic speed drum machine team. And I mean that in a good way. What is accurate is the tagline ‘a 3-day rave condensed into an hour’.

A show that is simply mind-boggling

The dancer-choreographers Oli Mathiesen, Lucy Lynch and Sharvon Mortimer are already dancing as the audience make their way to their seats. It would not surprise me if the performers have already been dancing for half an hour.

The music is adrenaline-pumping hard techno at full blast – courtesy of Suburban Knight’s Nocturbulous Behaviour album.

What follows is an hour of non-stop synchronised endurance dancing at such speed it’s surprising limbs don’t fall off.

Viewed simply as a feat of memory, the dancing is astonishing. There must be two or three moves or poses per second, all of which are detailed from the fingertips to the toes – and all perfectly synchronised between the dancers. It’s like firing a machine gun for an hour and remembering the name of every bullet.

The experience is sweaty, grimy and loud. The dancers are unremitting and relentless, as if each is connected to a personal generator parked outside. Every so often, one or more of them look as if they’re tiring – but that’s just to trick the audience.

There are a few slow-downs of seconds while they gulp cups of water, but near the end of the show they even swig while dancing. Presumably there is too much routine left to take time to pause.

The show emulates a rave but the difference is these performers are choreographed to the molecular level. The movement is incredibly varied. Sometimes you might think they are repeating a sequence, but then you see they are doing something new.

This is a short review for a five-star award. The show has no themes, no examination of a topic, no research of dance archives; there’s no message. What there is, is a show that is simply mind-boggling.

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The Blurb:

The award-winning endurance-based dance work to the booming techno album Nocturbulous Behaviour by Suburban Knight is the atmosphere and culture of a three-day rave condensed into an hour. Relentless movement, seamless without pause, detailed down to every beat. Exploring the movement used in techno and rave culture, witness the destruction of three humans. Indulge in the pain, the sweat: a display of pure endurance to achieve a goal. A spectacle of the human body as a victim to music, to passion, to our endless desire to achieve more. To win and win again.