Fruitful Ties and Bone Dust - Steinvor Palsson/Mathew Hawkins

Fruitful Ties and Bone Dust – Steinvor Palsson/Mathew Hawkins and Lucy Suggate The Bodyfarm @ Dance Base

An inspired double-bill

★★★★★

Review by Stephanie Green | 17 Aug 2012

Published in The Skinny Magazine

Fruitful Ties by former Royal Ballet member, Matthew Hawkins and Steinvor Palsson is outstanding: an elegant, stylish and stylised multi-layered piece, performed to a Concerto Grosso by Handel,  it playfully introduces lemons and ties to Hawkins and Palsson's classically inspired choreography. The superb costumes by Pearl reference 17th Century Inigo Jones' masque-dance, close bodice and feathery neckline and hems, wittily designed from ties. The punning title indicates this is also a piece about memory.

A soundtrack, rather like memory, fading in and out, suggests how objects, a lemon for instance, can help recall. Tied together with reins of ties, then stepping in and out of a cat's cradle, they step in and out of past and present: formal Baroque leg flourishes and modern slapstick. A masterpiece performed by two exquisite dancers.

Bone Dust by Lucy Suggate is also accomplished and ironic: a Dance Macabre with a difference. In the dark, out of a scary, billowing black tutu on the floor, a skull emerges. Lucy then talks about dance 'beyond the rot' in a highly amusing soliloquy. So often text introduced by dancers is of poor quality but Lucy is exceptionally talented as dancer and playwright and her dance imitating a cartoon skeleton's movements is a delight.

16-25 Aug (not 20) Times vary. £10 (£8) Running time 40 mins Dance Base, 14-16, Grassmarket, EH1 2JU Tickets 0131 225 5525 http://www.dancebase.co.uk

What the Folk

What the Folk @ Dance Base

Irish Craic.

★★★★★

Review by Stephanie Green | 09 Aug 2012

Published in The Skinny Magazine.

With all the famed wit and verve, hospitality, and gift of the gab of the Irish, not least a cup of tea and a piece of cake (Oh go on, go on), this is a dance event with a difference.  Oh yes, there's plenty of song and dance (Irish step-dancing like you've never seen before, high-kicking in the cleared space of a kitchen.  For this event does not take place in a studio.  We were taken to a secret location, invited into the temporary home of the dance company, Siamsa Tire, from Tralee in County Kerry, for a hilarious, spell-binding and heart-warming  50 minutes of craic.

In between the jokes, the stories about their childhood learning how to dance, the Psycho Mums who push their progeny with manic ambition into the  Feis, (or the Fish) the four dancers broke into strict competition style step-dancing, then the more relaxed North Kerry Munnix.  And they are talented Gaelic singers too. We heard stories about the people of  Siamsa Tire, the National Folk Theatre of Ireland, and felt we knew them as friends by the end. What is, who is and what the folk?   And boy, those kicks were pretty high!

What the Folk! National Folk Theatre of Ireland Meet at Dance Base and you will be taken to a secret location Fri 3-Sun 19 Aug (not Mon 6 or 13) at 3pm & 6pm For Age 12+ All tickets £12 (£10) Running time 50 mins.http://www.dancebase.co.uk