This year's Edinburgh festival brings world-renowned choreographers, ballet cabaret, and fluffy clowns for toddlers. Here are the hottest dance and circus shows to watch.
Mere Mortals
San Francisco Ballet's big new commission from 2024 gets its European premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival. An ambitious production with impressive visuals, it's an AI-themed retelling of the Pandora's box myth by choreographer Aszure Barton. Music is by British producer Floating Points, who performs live with an orchestra. Edinburgh Playhouse, 28-30 August.
Ihsane
Belgian Moroccan choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui presents a meditation on his Moroccan roots and cycles of destruction and rebirth, grief and hope. With live music from Tunisian viola d'amore player Jasser Haj Youssef. Festival Theatre, 18-20 August.
Good Enough?
Danish company Himherandit follows up their fringe hit Mass Effect with a completely different prospect: a trio of performers, each with a chair and microphone, telling their life stories in physical theatre made of queer joy and vulnerability. Summerhall, 19-30 August.
Under Mask
Taiwanese choreographer Lai Yun-Chi, a former member of Hofesh Shechter's junior company, makes her Edinburgh debut with her own company Mailantia. Under Mask draws on her family's history as leatherworkers and uses intricate steampunk-style masks. Assembly @ Dance Base, 6-30 August.
Ballet Nights
A staple of the London dance calendar, Ballet Nights is on a national tour including its first fringe shows. It's a gala- or cabaret-style format with a lively compere and various acts, from classical ballet pas de deux to contemporary dance, plus live music. Music Hall at Assembly Rooms, 24-30 August.
The Palestinian Circus
Based in Birzeit, just north of Ramallah, the Palestinian Circus performed at last year's Glastonbury and now brings their acrobatics to the fringe. Their show Step and a Half is inspired by the rhythms of the Palestinian folk dance dabkeh, mixing traditional culture with contemporary circus. Underbelly's Circus Hub on the Meadows, 8-29 August.
Flamenc Oh!!
A comedy flamenco show from Spain, co-produced with London's Sadler's Wells, that sends up flamenco's cliches with love. It's an "irreverent tribute" rather than a parody, featuring proper flamenco dance and music from quality performers with knowing humour. Music Hall at Assembly Rooms, 6-30 August.
Exit
Belgian circus artist Piet Van Dycke's Exit features a seemingly simple set of walls and doorways that becomes a maze of revolving platforms for four performers, each specializing in a different circus discipline. It's a dance of continual arrival and departure, appearance and disappearance. Zoo Southside, 18-30 August.
Boys Don't Dance
Marc Brew, an Australian dancer who made An Accident/A Life about the car accident that left him a paraplegic, returns with another autobiographical work. Boys Don't Dance reflects on his childhood love of dance and society's response, featuring dance on foot and on wheels (BMX, wheelchair) and an 80s soundtrack. Assembly @ Dance Base, 7-23 August.
Twelve: Going the Distance
New York choreographer Marisa F Ballaro makes her Edinburgh debut with a dance piece set in a boxing ring. Five women see if they can go the distance over 12 rounds as allegiances and rivalries play out and exhaustion sets in. Raw physicality meets American modern dance. Summerhall, 6-16 August.
Glob
For your annual dose of winsome, whimsical French-Canadian circus, Les Foutoukours present Glob. Winner of the young audience award at Avignon's festival fringe, it stars two sweetly comical fluffy creatures with clown noses, a peaceful break from the world for the over-fives. Underbelly, Bristo Square, 5-30 August.
Everybody's Got a Bomb
Riley Fitzgerald, who has danced with Sydney Dance Company and Ballet National de Marseille, makes his own work. Everybody's Got a Bomb was inspired by a documentary about Woodstock 99, full of frustration, rage, and chaos when society ruptures. Zoo Southside, 7-16 August.
