Seen at Edinburgh Festival Fringe on the 21^st of August 2019

Review by Federica Balbi

 – Aerial blossoming

02Floating Flowers @Chou Mo

Taiwan-Floating (c)MariaFalconer.

If flying lanterns were floating flowers and floating flowers were humans, how would they dance? Inspired by a Taiwan’s Buddhist ceremony, this performance is a mesmerising encounter between ritual tradition and contemporary dance.

    No surprise Studio 1 at Dance Base was always full: the eight dancers of the company B.Dance are incredibly light and tireless. Po-Cheng Tsai’s choreography tends towards the sky, and even the worst feelings find their solutions up above.

    Amazingly versatile, the long white tulle skirts the dancers wear – despite constituting an impediment of some sort – create a whole series of new possibilities of movement. These possibilities are largely explored throughout the performance, surprising the spectators with unexpected positions, jumps, whirls…

    Recurring as a feature of the choreography, a discordant element always catches the eye and enriches the whole performance. From time to time, one of the dancers can be seen doing something different from everybody else, an intentional imperfection that is danced into beauty. As to balance the choral scenes, some solos and duos give breath and seem to slow down the rhythm, while accelerating the narrative that could be read in the dance.

    If motion often starts from the wrists, this appears to be due to the pulse beating in them. There is harmony from disorder, from the noise of stumping feet, and when there is no harmony, there is beauty nonetheless. Or irony, as for the final image.

6^th – 25^th August 2019, 3.30 pm

Running time: 50 minutes

Dance Base (Venue 22), 14-16 Grassmarket, Edinburgh EH1 2JU

Tickets and Info: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/taiwan-season-floating-flowers

Company website: http://www.bdance.com.tw/?bdance_lang=en

Twitter: https://twitter.com/BdanceTaiwan

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bdance_taiwan/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/B.DANCE.com.tw/