Shows cast their spell over young festival audiences
Birdboy
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
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Little Murmur
Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh
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The Hope River Girls The Studio, Edinburgh JJJJ
Hermit
Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh
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It’s been a thrilling week at the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival for those who are interested in the power of dance and movement in children’s theatre, and in combining movement with spectacular visual s; not least in two powerful and ground-breaking solo shows, from Dublin and Leicester, both of which also explore the powerful post-lockdown themes of loneliness, isolation and self-reflection.
Birdboy, by the Irish company United Fall, is a breathtakingly vivid 40-minute piece aboutaboywhoseemstohave fled from his suburban life, to live in a beaten-up old car in the woods. The car sits centrestage, in Emma Martin’s stunningly designed and choreographedshow;andtosaythatit seemstohavealifeofitsownis an understatement. It shrieks and flashes, plays an astonishing mix-tape of rock and pop tunes, and from time to time spewsforthlittleghostlywhite figures like helium-filled plastic carrier bags trailing ribbons of silk, which then hang aroundlikefriendlyaliens,witnessingtheastonishingagony andecstasyofthecentralcharacter, brilliantly played and danced by Kevin Coquelard.
Aakash Odedra and Lewis Major’s co-choeographed solo piece Little Murmur is designed to reflect more specifically on the experience of dyslexia, and on Odedra’s own struggle with the condition. Performed in Edinburgh by Subhash Viman Gorania, Little Murmur features tentative spoken-word elements that perhaps sit a little awkwardly beside the sheer authority and brilliance of the show’s movement and dance, and the superb animated sequences which accompany it. In his battle with the avalanches of paper that plague modern life, though, the character on stage seems to strike a profound chord with his young seven to 14 year-old audience.
There’s more clarity about the relationship between spoken word and movement in young Scottish company Groupwork’s The Hope River Girls, a new version of its 2019 Scotsman Fringe Firstwinning show The Afflicted, designed for audiences aged ten to 15. Here, the story of a group of teenage girls in Hope River, New York State, who – a decade ago – suddenly began to twitch, moan, and show signs of severe neurological disturbance, is clearly told through Lewis Den Hertog’ssuperbvideowork,andby the cast themselves, in stylish spokenwordsequences.then the emotions and imagery unleashedareexploredinever more intense and magnificent sequences of dance, backed by animatedfilm,whichtogether invokeallthestill-presentpressures in the history of the town –from1930sdepressionto17th centurywitchcrafttrials–that might have contributed to the strange Hope River incident.
Andfinally,foranear-perfect combinationofmovementand humanvoiceinchildren’stheatre, there’s no need to look any further than Simone De Jong of the Netherlands’ exquisitely funny show Hermit, for children aged two to six. On stage, there’s a box that turns out to besomeone’shome;butintrue lockdown style, the person who lives there has become a hermit,notatallhappytohear his doorbell ring. Around that simple idea, De Jong and performer Toon Kuijpers build a gorgeous 40 minute show that fully involves the children intheaudienceinavital,laughter-filled interaction with the hermit on stage; in a performance that fully captures the joyofthisyear’schildren’sfestival, and the sheer quality of the live work it features.