There are more shows at the fringe than you could ever watch, but that hides the fact that artists and venues are struggling with rising costs and funding cuts. Edinburgh’s Dance Base, a year-round arts organisation, announced it was reducing its activity earlier in the year, and for the festival is presenting a slimmed-down programme in association with Assembly. What hasn’t changed is the eclectic mix of local and international artists, and work that surprises, delights and disappoints, sometimes all in the same show. (Dance Base also hosts a poignant photographic exhibition of dancers living in Ukraine, which is worth checking out if you’re nearby.)
One of the best current shows is Bettina Szabo’s Habitat (★★★★), a solo that rests on one incredible prop, a spiky sculpture made from of 600 paper cones, like a long origami cape, or Issey Miyake’s take on a hedgehog costume. It looks unassuming laid on the stage as Szabo slowly flexes and unfolds her body, moving side-to-side, a hermit crab looking for its next home. She’s miked up, and her increasingly urgent breaths form part of the ambient soundscore. When she finally finds her new shell you hear long exhales of relief, breath catching at the bottom of her lungs – it’s these kind of close details that really make the piece. Once Szabo is inside the sculpture, made by artist Jacinthe Derasp, it seems to have its own life; shapeshifting from snoozing beast to puffer fish to armadillo to sharp-toothed monster to feathery exotic bird to a designer version of Jabba the Hutt. It’s remarkable to watch the possibilities.
