In the Bushes overview – a enjoyable and fearful stroll on the wild aspect | Edinburgh competition 2025

The surrealist worlds of choreographer Léa Tirabasso will not be instantly readable to the typical viewers member (that’s a well mannered means of claiming: what on earth is occurring right here?!) however Tirabasso has determined she needs you to know what she’s on about. Queueing for her newest present, In the Bushes, we’re given a handout of an interview the place the French choreographer cites her influences, from Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle to Henry Gee’s The Accidental Species. It’s the concept of human exceptionalism that’s on the coronary heart of her pondering: we’re simply animals, she says. What makes us suppose we’re above the remainder of our kingdom? And when you take away society’s manners and constraints, who’re we then? What goes on within the bushes when no person’s trying?

In reality, the looks of the six dancers is much less animal, extra like a bunch of toddlers who’ve been let unfastened within the dressing up field, tottering about on tippy toes, squawking and cooing and twittering. They come throughout like Teletubbies (you may discover this irritating, or hilarious). She paints us as simplistic beasts, sensory-seekers, rolling on the ground, rubbing towards one another, doing what feels good. There’s naivety and lack of embarrassment about our bodies – it brings to thoughts Emma Stone within the movie Poor Things, particularly later when issues get a bit much less naive with biting palms, slapping bottoms and giggly kisses.

But then there’s the intrusion of disgrace, worry, and innocence misplaced. Nakedness and the dawning of self-consciousness. These elements are cleverly, amusingly performed, together with the creeping in of rituals, for the useless, for instance – one thing that’s been noticed in animals, too. The climax is a big outpouring of faux emotion. The dancers play at being distraught, tears dripped from a water bottle, revelling within the huge feels, even after they’re fully fabricated. This certainly is a real marker of human behaviour – what else can we use artwork for, if to not fabricate feelings?

The feelings produced right here appear pretty floor degree. It’s a humorous and foolish piece of dance, despite the fact that it’s additionally deeply involved with the very nature of who we’re. They are a really spectacular clan of performers, to maintain up this degree of jittery, full-body power and intense character for a continuously shifting hour. Humans are sometimes enthralled to look at animal behaviour that we don’t essentially perceive, and this isn’t dissimilar.

At Summerhall, Edinburgh, till 25 August