DANCE & PHYSICAL THEATRE

When I first learned that a Flash Mob was going to happen in the centre of Edinburgh as part of the Fringe, I thought I’d be reviewing some Twitter savvy Scottish people at Waverley station – suddenly bursting into dance in protest over the price of milk. Er, no.

This Flash Mob is at The Assembly Hall. The show presents a variety of acts from across the genres that many will recognize from television dance shows.

Any thoughts that we may be in for sustained commercialised tedium were dispelled from the opening performance. The gorgeous Tommy Franzén produced a spot lit solo that had dance purists, gays, mums dads and the kids (I know these groups are not mutually exclusive) cheering for joy.

We proceeded through an hour of hip-hop, street, Irish, Latin… you name it, they did it. And they did it well. But it wasn’t all fun and games; a beautiful and surprisingly dark contemporary piece performed by Alleviate (Nicolette Whitley and Renako McDonald) was just stunning. I urge you to check them out on YouTube if like me, you haven’t seen the Sky show on which they competed.

Of-course the finale brought all the dancers out together for a ‘jam’ (I think that’s the word) and a shambolic, but very funny dance lesson for the audience which had us out of our chairs, shaking like a mutha and trampling over strangers.

I loved it.

MW