Dance

Looking at the dance line-up at this year’s Festival, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were leafing through the Fringe programme. Not only is there more dance than ever before but there is an edge to some of the work that proves, once again, the EIF is moving in an interesting direction.

Northern Irish dancer and choreographer Oona Doherty set Dance Base ablaze with the powerful Hope Hunt at the 2017 Fringe. So it’s with much excitement that we welcome her back, with a new four-part work, Hard to be Soft: A Belfast Prayer.

Helen Pickett’s re-working of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is also a known quantity, after a 40-minute version was toured by Scottish Ballet in 2014. Back then it showed promise, but cried out for more, which happily it now has in this full-length version.

Birds of Paradise’s 2016 show, Purposeless Movements has also toured before, but this funny and poignant look at cerebral palsy fully deserves the important platform it will now get.

Less well known in Scotland is Peacock Contemporary Dance Company with its theatrical take on Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, and Faso Dance Théâtre’s Kalakuta Republik, about Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti. Both are exciting propositions, taking us deep into the heart of another culture.

It’s also heartening to see the Festival continue its offer for young audiences, with Canada’s Cas Public ,and keeping the work of the late post-modern choreographer Trisha Brown alive at the beautiful Jupiter Artland.