Ballet Freedom

My wife and I have just celebrated a 25th anniversary of visiting Kyiv (to see Barry Town play football but that is a different story). I was looking for a Ukrainian themed show at this year's festival and although I had earmarked Wednesday evening to go to Leith to watch something from The International Festival; I immediately changed my plans once I saw "Ballet Freedom" in the brochure.

I am not a great fan of modern ballet though I loved seeing Mikhail Baryshnikov in "PastForward" at the International Festival back in 2001. Although they are playing a large venue at the EICC it was disappointing to see it less than half full, although this did mean we could find lovely aerial seats and avoid the possibility of actually being in the show, which trust me no-one would want to see.

Here we could just sit back, relax and watch an adaptation of their show "Boudoir". A posh looking dinner party quickly dissolves into a variety of sexual encounters, mainly male led and not always easy to watch. Early on I gave up trying to find a linear narrative and just decided to enjoy the dancer's physical dexterity, style and rhythm.

For me one of the charms of the ballet is the music they select and tonight I loved the variety of a jazzed up "Bolero", some Tango, some Tiger Lillies, "Quarantine " from "First Man" and a lot of Benjamin Clementine amongst others.

I was hoping for some emotional connection or catharsis during the evening which I didn't get, but I still loved the show and would encourage dance fans or just humanitarians to head to the EICC.