There is a warm, gooey place in every Biscuiteer’s heart for Zoo Venues. Its performance spaces are among the best in Edinburgh, its programming is winningly adventurous...and we basically ran Fringebiscuit from the Roxy’s basement last year.
(Sorry. This year we’ll bring a dongle.)
It is also one of the few central venues that caters for experimental and non-populist dance, and this year there are some rich pickings. Isobel Cohen’s Within Range, 2Faced’s In The Dust and DOT504’s Mah Hunt should satisfy those looking for the explosive and the cutting-edge, while (for the more conservative) Scottish Dance Theatre presents a medley of short pieces entitled Matters of the Heart.
We have already recommended Greg Mclaren’s solo show Doris Day Can F*** Off; more expertly made performance should be found in duo Mars.tarrab’s delicate Tomboy Blues – The Theory of Disappointment, and also in Hannah Silva’s political poetry-experiment Opposition, both supported by the Barbican Theatre, Plymouth. Zoo will be welcoming back its golden goose, visual young company Idle Motion, which rocketed to critical acclaim with Zoo shows Borges and I (2009) and The Vanishing Horizon (2010, and part of this year’s British Council Showcase). Expect tickets to vanish as well for their latest offering, The Seagull Effect.
There are lots of good-looking shows supported by Escalator East to Edinburgh this year, and Zoo kindly plays host to six of them. Working the Devil, Agnes and Walter (A Little Love Story) and Forgetting Natasha make up an impressive-looking trio of dance pieces, while Martin Figura’s Whistle and Jonathan Lichtenstein’s Darkness bear promise in the fields of spoken word and new writing, respectively. Lastly, performance artist Jamie Moakes is going to headbutt the world economy with the spring-loaded Ram Man, a little-known action figure – You Will Be Rare sounds like a potential cult hit.
All in all, an exciting year of new work at Zoo Venues – but that’s hardly surprising. They are rather good.
PS. Not at Zoo Venues, but rather in the Edinburgh Zoo (!!!), is dance piece Enclosure 99 – Humans, which looks fascinating, and is a great example of how the entire city gets behind all things Fringe during the month of August. OH GOODNESS WE ARE SO EXCITED!
