SisGo @ Edinburgh Festival Theatre

Review by Susannah Radford | 17 Sep 2013

You know it’s going to be a different night when – as an audience member – you're asked to put on socks; but then SisGo is not your typical dance show.  Artistic Director of Scottish Dance Theatre (SDT) Fleur Darkin has created an intriguing night of promenade performance where performer-audience mingling organically evolves into a fun night out.

Neon lights mark the performance space, but it takes a moment to orient yourself. The performance moves about the space and the audience moves with it.  Who is a performer?  Who is an audience member?  What am I watching?  New spaces are revealed, opening up corridors of dance which then surprise again. 

Participation is inevitable but moreover it’s a chance to connect with the dancers who actively seek to engage.  There’s always a sense of frisson being close to a performer and to witness such control before it morphs into a twittering of energy is exciting. 

In a way it’s a highly personal night. You see what you choose to be drawn to and, taken en masse, each night must be slightly different.  As such, there is a fluidity to the performance and the space it inhabits; we move like one giant organism, an amoeba engulfing and retreating into the space.

As the music pulses through your body the boundaries between performer and audience become slightly blurred.  Before you know it, you’ve been pulled down onto the floor with lots of others, jumping up and down shouting touch me, touch me. It’s unexpected but a blast.

 

Run ended http://www.eif.co.uk