The Bank of Scotland Imaginate Festival, Edinburgh’s international performing arts festival for children and young people, has come a long way from the days of tents in Inverleith Park. In 1998, festival events moved into centre theatre venues and this is the format we know today.
This year marks the Festival’s 21st birthday and to celebrate the programme offers the largest ever selection of Scottish companies at the Festival. These are returning Scottish companies showcasing world class work that has toured nationally and internationally as well as emerging Scottish companies presenting challenging theatre for children and young people. The international programme is represented by companies from Germany, France, Netherlands and Belgium. The Festival runs from Monday 10 May to Sunday 16 May 2010 before touring.
One of the shows opening this year’s Festival was Chit Chat – ‘a duet choreography for all from 6 years +’. The French title of the show is Papotages which translated literally means ‘chattering’ or ‘idle chatter’. In this performance there are no words and it is the bodies of the two dancers’ that speak for themselves. The company, étantdonné, cite eclectic French influences such as artist Marcel Duchamp, writer Roland Barthes and comedian Pierre Desproges, all radical and innovative in their own field, but they are also continuing the great tradition of French mime.
From a slit of light on a darkened stage, bare feet march on to the sound of clanking boots. Fabulous start! It was surprising and engaging and a taste of things to come. The show is divided in to various sections, each with its own music which ranges from Bob Marley to birdsong and bongo drums but it is the accordion sound of Musette that stayed in my ears.
We see coy and shy flirting and the ensuing male /female dynamics through the language of feet and legs. We see the set changed to a puppet theatre where hands take centre stage, creating shapes and symbols in the air – a beautiful, unique semaphore. We see heroic stances and idealised poses reminiscent of the art of Soviet Russia, the clue to the adults being the red glove on each dancers’ hand. Of course, this interpretation is mine, but as the ethos of Barthes is at play, that’s ok!
One of the highlights for me was when the stage floor became a nest of shadows and the dancers, dressed in brown bird coloured overcoats, moved their arms in time to birdsong, their sleeves miraculously becoming wings. I don’t know how to describe making a sound a shape. Is it a form of synaesthesia? Whatever it is, Frédérike Unger and Jérôme Ferron carried it off so well that each sound could have believably been recognised by their gestures had the birdsong disappeared. Throughout the performance, they hooked and looped and connected their bodies, creating amazing shapes with apparent ease. A joy to watch!
The word ‘derision’ is used is used a lot in the company’s publicity to describe its work. Maybe the word has a subtle difference in meaning in French, but I associate the word with cruel mockery and picked up nothing of that from étantdonné. I did pick up astute observation, fun, some gentle mockery and most of all, immaculate synchronisation. They also describe how they have “... [developed] an artistic universe which...has invested in a way both parallel and complimentary in performances for adults and creations for children.”
This is a show that will appeal visually and imaginatively on the surface to children and its deeper layers will appeal more subtly to adults.
Show runs at Imaginate Festival 10-12 May