RAMBERT KISMET Festival Theatre Edinburgh 3rd July 2025 Review

Rambert – Kismet is at the Festival Theatre Edinburgh until Saturday 5th July with two very different works and, as usual from this company, both are very distinctive in their use of choreography, music and visuals to tell a story.
 
Kismet – fate, destiny, predestination, or whichever of the other possibilities you prefer to use to describe the word is not only the collective title of these works, but also the thread that is common to both of them. This connection is clearer once both works have been experienced as individual and collective works.

Opening this double-bill tonight was the world premiere of “Gallery of Consequence” by choreographer and director Emma Evelein. Set in the everyday world of airports, this work explores the endless possibilities of chance and fate that every arrival and destination gate offers. Sometimes these gates lead to carefully planned events, but also they can lead to random moments in time, random meetings with people and interactions with them.

There is a very distinctive look and feel to the choreography of this work and, with often very angular and edgy movements of the dancers, Emma Evelein has captured perfectly that feeling of unease, often sheer frustration with our surroundings that many of us experience at airports. If something can go wrong, it probably will happen. There is also something about these movements, the way they stop and start, that also reminds me of stop-motion animation.

As a work, “Gallery of Consequence” is full of delightful vignettes of people interacting with one another as multiple stories endlessly unfold here. At first, these little stories might seem to be random events, but they are actually all part of a larger vision as they merge with the visuals of destination boards changing constantly behind the dancers. Visuals are by Video Designer: AMIANGELIKA Dramaturg by Amy Baty also needs its credit here too. Sound is also an integral part of this work and designer Raven Bush often uses a very subtle approach to very good effect here. All of this story is performed to a carefully curated selection of contemporary music.
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The second work tonight – “B.R.I.S.A.” had its world premiere in 2014, but tonight was its Rambert premiere. Inspired by the Spanish word for “breeze”, choreographer Johan Inger has created a work that is very different from “Gallery of Consequence” in almost every way, but in its exploration of how the smallest shifts in things can have a transformative effects on many other events, this work is still very much Kismet at work.
 
Here that transformative movement of air comes from ever increasing means to provide it, as a handheld fan eventually gives way to leaf blowers and even larger devices, we as an audience explore through the Rambert dancers’ movements these changing movements of air.  Sometimes, this is a very physical response to that movement of air, sometimes it is an exploration of shifting events and relationships, but often there is a lot of humour in everything that takes place on stage.
 
Visuals are a large part of this work and here Set Designer Johan Inger provides unusual surfaces for the dancers to work on while at the same time having the whole work viewed from the audience’s perspective behind a fine screen of equally spaced vertical lines at the front of the stage.  Very specific lighting design by Tom Visser is also integral to the many individual stories being told on stage.
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As usual from Rambert, both works are bold in their approach to dance and movement and the results as always are full of surprises.
 
Review by Tom King © 2025
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