Rambert Aisha and Abhaya Festival Theatre Edinburgh Review 10th February 2022
Rambert: Aisha and Abhaya is at The Festival Theatre Edinburgh for 3 nights (Thu 10 Feb to Sat 12 Feb) and if you are looking for a unique theatrical experience then this production’s fusing of film, animation and live performance with new original music could be just what you are searching for.
Occasionally as a reviewer you come across a production that pretty much eludes the parameters of a conventional review, and Aisha and Abhaya is one of those. There are three main reasons for this –
1. This co-production between Rambert and The Royal Ballet, in association with BBC Films and Robin Saunders, is a multi-arts experience that simply needs to be experienced live in a theatre where you can allow yourself to become immersed into its story, its visuals and its sounds.
2. Everyone is probably going to interpret this production in their own unique way.
3. Giving too much information away in a review runs the risk of pre-empting in some way how the production could be perceived by you as so much of the magic of Aisha and Abhaya is not knowing what is coming next.
Giving no secrets away here I can tell you that our opening introduction to this work is cinematic as filmmaker Kibwe Tavares gives us our first encounter with Aisha and Abhaya who have fled the violence of their nameless homeland to risk their lives in a journey across the waters to unknown lands. The future for our two travellers is undefined as we never know where they are or what time period we are in, but here Kibwe Tavares uses his skills as an architect to give us a futuristic fantasy world that evokes for me memories of seeing Blade Runner for the first time. Unifying film, animation and dance we have also an at times huge digital augmented-reality Spirit.
The first encounter with other people of this strange new land that Aisha and Abhaya have are night-time revellers at a fireside and bringing this experience to life on stage we have an original techno music soundtrack from Ori Lichtik and GAIKA that is a hypnotic and timelessly tribal experience in its own right, but also the perfect sound backdrop to give us some understanding as to how strange and possibly disturbing Aisha and Abhaya are finding their new world. The soundtrack is of course a perfect sonic world for choreographer Sharon Eyal to bring to life via the always amazing interpretive skills of the dancers on stage.
Whether the time be past, present or some undetermined future, Aisha and Abhaya reminds us all that the reasons people are forced to flee their homelands and everyone and everything that they know and love for an often perilous journey to a new and unknown land of hopeful safety and the chance to perhaps start a new life there never really changes. Sometimes we can so easily forget that behind every journey is a human being with their own Aisha and Abhaya story to tell.
Rambert is always there at the cutting edge of contemporary dance and that is always going to mean taking risks. Sometimes for me, those risks work in different degrees of success, but this time I have no doubt that a work of unique vision has been created and it is difficult to even guess just how many hours have gone into creating the choreography, visuals, music and of course dance practice that Aisha and Abhaya would require to bring a multi-discipline arts project like this to stage for us to experience. I am, as I write, still processing much of last night’s performance and will continue to do so for many days to come.
Review by Tom King (c) 2022
ARTS REVIEWS EDINBURGH
Occasionally as a reviewer you come across a production that pretty much eludes the parameters of a conventional review, and Aisha and Abhaya is one of those. There are three main reasons for this –
1. This co-production between Rambert and The Royal Ballet, in association with BBC Films and Robin Saunders, is a multi-arts experience that simply needs to be experienced live in a theatre where you can allow yourself to become immersed into its story, its visuals and its sounds.
2. Everyone is probably going to interpret this production in their own unique way.
3. Giving too much information away in a review runs the risk of pre-empting in some way how the production could be perceived by you as so much of the magic of Aisha and Abhaya is not knowing what is coming next.
Giving no secrets away here I can tell you that our opening introduction to this work is cinematic as filmmaker Kibwe Tavares gives us our first encounter with Aisha and Abhaya who have fled the violence of their nameless homeland to risk their lives in a journey across the waters to unknown lands. The future for our two travellers is undefined as we never know where they are or what time period we are in, but here Kibwe Tavares uses his skills as an architect to give us a futuristic fantasy world that evokes for me memories of seeing Blade Runner for the first time. Unifying film, animation and dance we have also an at times huge digital augmented-reality Spirit.
The first encounter with other people of this strange new land that Aisha and Abhaya have are night-time revellers at a fireside and bringing this experience to life on stage we have an original techno music soundtrack from Ori Lichtik and GAIKA that is a hypnotic and timelessly tribal experience in its own right, but also the perfect sound backdrop to give us some understanding as to how strange and possibly disturbing Aisha and Abhaya are finding their new world. The soundtrack is of course a perfect sonic world for choreographer Sharon Eyal to bring to life via the always amazing interpretive skills of the dancers on stage.
Whether the time be past, present or some undetermined future, Aisha and Abhaya reminds us all that the reasons people are forced to flee their homelands and everyone and everything that they know and love for an often perilous journey to a new and unknown land of hopeful safety and the chance to perhaps start a new life there never really changes. Sometimes we can so easily forget that behind every journey is a human being with their own Aisha and Abhaya story to tell.
Rambert is always there at the cutting edge of contemporary dance and that is always going to mean taking risks. Sometimes for me, those risks work in different degrees of success, but this time I have no doubt that a work of unique vision has been created and it is difficult to even guess just how many hours have gone into creating the choreography, visuals, music and of course dance practice that Aisha and Abhaya would require to bring a multi-discipline arts project like this to stage for us to experience. I am, as I write, still processing much of last night’s performance and will continue to do so for many days to come.
Review by Tom King (c) 2022
ARTS REVIEWS EDINBURGH
