{"id":330244,"date":"2025-08-09T09:53:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T09:53:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/330244\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T09:53:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T09:53:19","slug":"dance-people-review-join-edinburgh-festivals-promenade-of-protest-and-play-edinburgh-festival-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/330244\/","title":{"rendered":"Dance People review \u2013 join Edinburgh festival\u2019s promenade of protest and play | Edinburgh festival 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

What you might not have expected from this outdoor promenade show, which purports to be about power structures, dictatorship and democracy, is some of the most joyful dancing you\u2019ll see this Edinburgh festival<\/a> \u2013 indeed, you might even be doing some of it yourself.<\/p>\n

Lebanese choreographer Omar Rajeh (now based in Lyon) leads a company of diverse movers, the kind of dancers that seem to move on instinct, their steps go from gnarly to sharp to shimmying; bursting with life and confidence. A pulsing jerk of Rajeh\u2019s shoulder catches and spreads until the whole group is bouncing as one and surging through the space, eyes shining, entranced by the music, like a full moon ritual or a solstice party under the light cloud of an Edinburgh<\/a> sky.<\/p>\n

It is infectious, and inevitably the invitation comes to join them: in a circle dance, instructions shouted over the music, or in a mass bop, arms thrust into the air, only a moderate amount of awkwardness and a few inhibitions thrown off.<\/p>\n

Infectious \u2026 Dance People at Old College Quad, Edinburgh. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

But Dance<\/a> People is more than a groovy dancefloor. What it really seems to be is a lot of ideas that have been thrown up between Rajeh, the dancers and dramaturg Peggy Olislaegers, that haven\u2019t been shaped into an effective whole. These roam vaguely (and sometimes specifically) around ideas of community and connection, citizenship, workers\u2019 oppression, borders and activism.<\/p>\n

Cumbersome pieces of stage set are moved around the space, forcing us out of the way \u2013 part of the power dynamic of the space, you could say. There\u2019s the drawing of boundaries that are then transgressed; excerpts from historical letters describing workers lives, and audience members describing their day; voiceover, projection, participation and some live oud music.<\/p>\n

The real theme is the feeling of helplessness of the average person in the face of the world\u2019s problems, and what this show is trying to do is turn us from passive to active spectators, by physically making us the protagonists, inviting us into the performer\u2019s sacred space, showing us the solidarity and the value in the people around us. But it is too overloaded and too wandering to be truly effective. As the night turns dark, the mood shifts from happy community into something more angry and alienating, and the galvanising force ebbs away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What you might not have expected from this outdoor promenade show, which purports to be about power structures,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":330245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-330244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}