AS a performing arts critic I have the privilege of being invited to festivals and showcases, not only throughout Scotland, but across Europe and beyond. However, I can honestly say that, wherever I travel, I never encounter a programme that is more consistently excellent than the annual Edinburgh International Children’s Festival.
Festival director Noel Jordan’s latest showcase of stage work for children is, as we have come to expect, wonderfully diverse and brilliantly curated. This splendid performance jamboree ends in Edinburgh today (although one show, Superfan’s So Far So Good, is going on tour: see review below).
Black (played at Dance Base) is a powerful piece of dance-theatre for children aged 12 and over. A solo show performed by the extraordinary Oulouy (a self-defined “urban dance” practitioner who hails from Ivory Coast, but is a long-time resident of Barcelona), the piece compresses the current and historical experiences of Black people in relation to European colonialism and racism into a compelling and intense 35 minutes.
In the opening segment of the choreography, Oulouy dances to hip hop, only to be stopped suddenly by harsh lights shining on him, like the headlamps of a police car or a police officer’s torch. The joyousness of his dance turned suddenly to shock and fear, his young, Black, male character is then shot.
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This scenario is repeated, as it is with depressing regularity in our world today, especially in the United States.
Moreover, the scene might bring to the minds of some in the show’s young audience the case of George Floyd (murdered by police in Minneapolis in 2020) and Sheku Bayoh (whose death at the hands of police in Fife in 2015 is the subject of a current public inquiry).
Oulouy performs to a diverse soundtrack that includes Billie Holiday singing Strange Fruit (the heartbreaking song of protest against the murderous racism of the southern United States) and Maya Angelou reading her great poem Still I Rise over a musical backdrop.
These are cultural reference points that might be familiar to some of the adults who encounter the piece, but, for many in the show’s young, intended audience, they will be potently new.
In one section of the work, the dance – which ranges from movements that are jerking, fearful and constrained to those that are athletic, hopeful and free – is set against projected images depicting (in sometimes unflinching detail) the horrors of transatlantic slavery, racial segregation in the southern US and apartheid in South Africa.
In tandem with the varied dance, the images also depict resistance to racism, from the Black uprisings in the US in the late-1960s to the release of Nelson Mandela.
Oulouy is a spellbinding performer and his piece is resonating and urgent. One hopes that it also leads to fruitful questions and conversations among its target audience of secondary school children.
Another production that should provoke deep discussion is The Yellow Canary (Scottish Storytelling Centre) by Glass Performance. Performed by Tashi Gore (who co-created the show with her cousin, writer Will Gore, and animator Ross MacKay) and directed by Jess Thorpe, the piece tells the story of the Gores’ Jewish family by way of Bernard (Tashi’s grandmother’s cousin) who is the last remaining Holocaust survivor in the clan.
The bird of the work’s title was Bernard’s pet, which he took with him as he and his family fled the Nazi occupation of Paris. Gore addresses her target audience (of 9-15 year olds) in a style that is winningly conversational and informative.
As she tells her story she is assisted by MacKay’s engaging, vivid animations (which range from the canary in its cage to the Wehrmacht marching into northern France), numerous photographs and video aids (including Skype footage of Tashi and Will interviewing Bernard).
There is also a delightful, unobtrusive soundtrack which draws charmingly on Jewish musical traditions.
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As one would expect from Gore (who is a leading practitioner in the field of devised performance with and by children and young people), the tale is rooted meaningfully in Bernard’s childhood experience and perspective. Although connected to the specificities of the Nazi Holocaust, Gore makes it clear that her piece is also intended to illuminate the current experience of the search for refuge.
Consequently, this gently powerful work is not only an important piece of education about the Shoah, it also speaks to the present-day trauma of millions of refugee children, from Ethiopia to Sudan, Myanmar and Gaza.
Another Scotland-produced show is So Far So Good (Assembly Roxy) by performance company Superfan. As we saw recently with Quebecois company Cirque de Soleil’s performances of their blockbuster show OVO at the OVO Hydro arena in Glasgow, ‘new circus’ (in which gymnastic skills and acrobatics are woven into a performance work) is a hugely popular phenomenon.
However, whilst most new circus shows are aimed at families, few are bespoke works for young children. Superfan’s latest offering is made specifically for wee ones aged between three and six years old.
In the piece, three young adult figures (dressed in dazzling silver) go on an explorative adventure on a set that is curved at both ends (a little like a skateboard park; although it has a huge rock towards one end). What ensues is a miniature journey involving all manner of tumbling, sliding, hand-stands and (in one early moment) someone walking above the ground by balancing on the bodies of her two friends (including someone’s head).
The edges of the space (which are illuminated in neon) are explored. The beautiful, tinkly soundtrack is accompanied at certain points by speech and noises by young children.
At one point, the children’s noises operate as forces of nature that seem to explode under our three protagonists or knock them sideways. There are moments of tremendous silliness, charming comedy and, even, live music and song.
All-in-all, it is an absorbing and highly inventive show for young children, and a credit to the festival.
The Edinburgh International Children’s Festival ends in Edinburgh today. So Far So Good tours Scotland until June 15: imaginate.org.uk
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