Balfour Reparations @ Summerhall

We are ushered into the thrust stage of Tech Cube Zero at Summerhall. The woman who greets and seats us is dressed in academic attire, which seems deceptively constricting, like a formal straightjacket. Every audience member is handed a print copy of a fictional public statement from a fictitious 2025 UK Government apologising for the Balfour Declaration of 1917; indeed, it is a written acknowledgement of the sins of British imperialism and the need for reparations. The document also lists a series of urgent and long-term steps towards reparations to the displaced and oppressed people of Palestine. Everyone in the audience ought to know, since the document is read aloud not once, but twice, by volunteers. 

I believe this is done to ensure the words and their meanings are thoroughly distilled – not only their literal meanings on the page, but what it means that they are totally unreal. Especially since they do not read whatsoever radically, as radical responses to the present crisis; that they bear no resemblance to the policy line of the presiding government of 2025 – the real 2025 – is utterly bewildering and shameful. This is felt and experienced by the audience, as the document is read and re-read.

The first thing I noticed about Balfour Reparations is that it is definitely not the typical listen-and-leave kind of political performance; it seamlessly synthesises performance (mainly dance) with elements of pedagogy, such as analyses of this fictitious apology statement. The woman who greets audiences is dressed as the ‘Chair’ of a 2045 ‘Evaluation Committee’ – this being the audience – who, with her, reflect on the legacies of colonialism, occupation, and displacement as if at a Socratic seminar.

As the document is (re-)read, she performs haunting and expressively choreographed dance routines, largely utilising Speculative Choreography, in which her physicality fluctuates from a fluidlike flow to heavier grounded displays, especially when themes of death and suffering arise in the document. These physical elements of Balfour Reparations are nothing short of mesmerising – achieving something to the effect of expressing the cycle and degree of trauma in the region since 1917, which words perhaps cannot. 

By the end, we are led through something like a Quaker meeting where the room remains in silence until individual words are spoken by an audience sharing in the collective emotions of all present, on stage and off: 'hurt', 'rage', 'shame', 'hope', and so on. The creative team sit as these words are uttered, like a panel, as the audience enters into a dialogue with them, perfectly dissolving the boundaries between viewer and performer – speaker and listener – through which Balfour Reparations communicates its themes.

More than a performance or a lecture per se, this production strikes as primarily a creative exchange designed to signpost the necessity of discourse, open exchange, and speaking up in times of suppression. It is not only timely, it is brilliantly memorable and innovative as a performance and political statement. Hurt, rage and shame are the heartbeat of Balfour Reparations – as is the hope. I sincerely hope it continues beyond the Fringe; those who would benefit from experiencing it are countless.

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Balfour Reparations, Summerhall (TechCube 0), until 25 Aug, 4.30pm, £14.50-17