Review by Yanmei Bowie

One trained at the Beijing Dance Academy, the other at Falmouth University, Yuxi Jiang and Lucca Vaccari – together Yucca Dance – set off to explore the perpetual cycles that bind our existence, creating the dance theatre piece In the Round, as recipients of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Keep it Fringe Fund. They perform in a small studio – about five metres in width and barely three metres in depth – but this is the Fringe, so every possible performing space is used.

The show starts with the female dancer Jiang appearing on the stage in a contemporary version of a Tibetan costume and headdress. Accompanied by modern electronic music with Tibetan elements and with her back to the audience, she moves her arms, hands and head in a slow but controlled way. I knew at that moment I was going to enjoy it. Then she takes her headdress off and carries on with her solo dance. A moment later, Vaccari comes on, and they dance together. Jiang then loses her Tibetan costume and dances with Vaccari again in contemporary everyday clothes. Their movements and costumes bring us back to the modern world: fragmented, distracted and repetitive.

In the middle of the performance a black-and-white film is projected where we see Jiang and Vaccari dancing in an outdoor space with many circular lines on the ground. They explore various movements in the round. Together and parting, connected and broken, found and lost. They are looking for something, perhaps an answer or a destination. The music is electronic with a stuttering effect. Some people might find the sound and the constant spinning camera slightly unsettling or dizzy.

After the film, Vaccari comes back on stage and performs a powerful routine on the floor. Shortly after, Jiang joins in, and they dance together again while voiceover featuring interviews in different languages is played. People talk about the nature and meaning of circles in life while Jiang and Vaccari carry on their own spiritual journey and looking for their own answer.

hile it appears as an obvious contemporary dance creation, knowing Jiang’s training background in folk dance, I was seeking for signs and movements in the choreography that reflected her background in traditional dance. Jiang’s face is more expressive than Vaccari’s, and she also demonstrates a rich variety of hand gestures in certain parts of the choreography. I believe those come from her years of training in Chinese folk dance.Overall, it’s a successful, dynamic and innovative production, where a steady and unified theme and tone are kept and delivered.

*

This review is published by Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland as part of our Traditional Dance Criticism Course, led by dance writer and editor Róisín O’Brien and supported by dance scholar and editor Dr Wendy Timmons.

Yanmei Bowie was one of the six applicants, alongside Yuxi Jiang, Catherine Coutts, Alena Shmakova, Inesa Vėlavičiūtė and Vassia Bouchagiar-Walker who were selected to participate in this pilot edition of the course in 2024.

In the Round was performed at Greenside, Edinburgh 19-25 August 2024 as part of International Festival Fringe. It was one of the shows with trad dance roots across the Edinburgh’s summer festivals we hand-picked to review. Images courtesy of the featured artists and contributors.

Please find further details about our #traddance campaign at Edinburgh summer festivals her