Top Picks: Dance, Physical Theatre and Circus

Our selection of the best shows from circus on treadmill to a provocative tomato

feature (edinburgh) | Read in About 2 minutes
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Runners
Photo by Petr Chodura
Published 02 Aug 2022

Antigone, Interrupted
Dance Base, 17-28 Aug (not 22-23) 8:40pm

Joan Clevillé brings a moving solo piece to Dance Base as part of the Made In Scotland showcase. Watch Solène Weinachter reinterpret the classic myth – with its themes of oppression, autonomy and family – under a modern gaze.

Runners
ZOO Southside, 5-28 Aug (not 10, 16, 22), 8:30pm

Award-winning Czech outfit Cirk La Putyka return to Edinburgh with two shows. Performed partly on a huge custom-built treadmill, Runners is as breathless, impatient and afraid of inertia as modern life forces us to be.

Taiwan Season: Tomato
Summerhall, 3-28 Aug (not 8, 15, 22), 3:10pm

Described as “both playful and provocative”, Tomato is a dance production by Taiwanese choreographer Chou Kuan-Jou that uses analogue bodies and digital screens to explore sex and gender through a feminist lens.

Hotel Paradiso
Underbelly Circus Hub on the Meadows, 6-27 Aug (not 15, 22), 3:20pm

Channelling the mounting chaos of hotel farces like Fawlty Towers, Hotel Paradiso is a whole-family circus extravaganza. Expect a full house of acrobatics blended with thigh-slapping antics, from one the UK’s leading family circus companies.

Dance Body
Summerhall, 3-27 Aug (not 8, 15, 22), 4:15pm

For a discipline ostensibly about self-expression, dance can be fiercely prescriptive about physicality. In Dance Body, BAFTA-nominated playwright/actor Yolanda Mercy seeks to reclaim the dancefloor for plus-sized bodies and challenge an industry that excludes them.