It’s a brave choreographer who would make advance plans for an outdoor evening show in Edinburgh, even in the ‘summer’. The Lebanese dance-maker Omar Rajeh took that chance, bringing his mixed bag of performers (his company Maqamat) to the atmospheric eighteenth-century Old Quad of Edinburgh University for a lengthy show on what turned out to be a drizzly and chilly night. Were they deterred? Not in the least, and neither were the audience: this was a world premiere after all.
Rajeh is an unashamedly political creator. Emerging from the chaos of civil war in Beirut, he swapped an academic career for dance and theatre, forming and re-forming various companies, until they finally settled on their current base in Lyons. And who are the ‘Dance People’? Well, all of us. He’s concerned with the way we relate to each other in the shared space that is our lives. So after the company had introduced themselves to us (individually, shaking hands and chatting), we were asked to look around, consider the person next to us and so on.
Rajeh maintains that dance, and movement generally, is revolutionary and confrontational; it’s the way he negotiates the world and its problems. This wasn’t always apparent in this piece, entertaining as it occasionally was. Political, certainly, but this came largely from video elements. Screens showed images, names and dates, presumably of political prisoners/victims – but who were they? Other slogans, projected on the ancient walls and on the video screens that wheeled laboriously around the space, proclaimed ‘Define Power’ and ‘You carry what was shared: You share what was lived’. However well intentioned, these were often difficult to penetrate, and despite the urgency of its political stance, it was quite a slow-moving show. Time was taken up organising the audience and sticking down red tape to delineate space: throughout, lighting and video modules trundled around the space, scattering the watchers.
It’s quite hard to define a style without sounding condescending. There was a lot of shimmying, bums wiggled, hips swayed, arms waved, there was dervish-like whirling. Individuals scissored in convulsive movement. Sometimes they joined hands in circles round one performer. As the ever-moving circles got wider, we the audience were invited to join in. Most did, with varying degrees of ability but lots of enthusiasm. Only occasionally did we get to see an individual performer show off technique, notably a man stripped to his Y-fronts whose solo was electrifying. At last!
They ended by ripping up all the tape from the floor and wrapping it round their heads. Taking their litter home, at least. Oh yes, and they handed out cups of tea. The company seemed likeable, there were amusing and eccentric moments and many seemed to enjoy the inclusivity but, sadly, at an hour and three-quarters it was over-long and the slogan-ising brought it dangerously close to being yet another show fulfilling all the vaguely right-on aims of this year’s Festival.
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