Waterwall: Materiali Resistenti Dance Factory: Edinburgh Fringe

Waterwall: Materiali Resistenti Dance Factory (co-production with Teatro della Tosse), Old College Quad, South Bridge (venue 192): 21.30 'till 24th August 2003.

Review: Mark Courtice, 15 August 2003

0131 662 8740 www.uoefo.com www.materialiresistenti.it

1 hour 10 minutes. No interval.

Italian water spectacular It must have seemed such a good idea in Italy where the nights are warm. Take 10 dancers, 15000 litres of water and mix the two with modish music and a groovy lighting rig, and you have a perfect night outside. It is doubtful whether they thought the same in Edinburgh last night. Even after the warmest days on record, it began to get colder by the time darkness fell.

The show is spectacular indeed as the dancers throw themselves over and about a huge frame of gantries and cables with, at its centre, a 4 metre high water wall.

This is formed by pipes that create a wall of water through and under which the dancers crash, and twirl, and down which they slide and almost swim. The front of the stage has a long slide right down to the front. Dancers career at you in a rush of spray. The moments when they swing forward through the water trailing iridescent rainbows are lovely, and the use of shadows against the water almost make it seem like a solid covering.

The lighting rig that produces great swathes of colour across all this. Shadows lay themselves across the porticoed and columned dignity of the Old College Quad and look great. Under strobe lights the water is transformed to look like huge lace, and the flickering performers look like black tadpoles.

The company are brave and very athletic. They crash through the water, and are equally confident under it as they are crawling metres above us on the gantry that (at moments) lurches down and forward to almost touch the ground. Their bodies shine in the night, and swirls of water extend their movements from their hair, arms and legs.

With all this, however, there is something lacking. A bit like circus, once you have marvelled at the cleverness and skill, there is nothing else to keep our attention. The spark of artistry would make this astonishing hard work mean something, and by the time we have seen the range of movement that the company are capable of (about half way through), it is meaning that we are looking for.

Choreographer: Ivan Manzoni
Music: Domenico Mezzatesta

2003-08-17 10:33:14