A Weekend at the Festival

[rhythmaning]

We went to see two events in the Edinburgh festival last weekend - Scottish Ballet in the International Festival (that’s culture with a capital K) and Niki King in the Fringe (that’s the popular bit).

Scottish Ballet

Scottish Ballet were beautiful. They performed a mixed bill of modern dance pieces at the Edinburgh Playhouse on Saturday, although modern is a flexible term: the first piece, Agon by George Balanchine, was nearly fifty years old. There was no set – just deep blue light flooding across the plain backdrop – the dancers in complex groups and en masse looked excellent.

I didn’t like the music to Agon, though – it was some Stravinsky pieces which I didn’t recognise, rather jarring.

The second piece was stunningly beautiful. A duet to Debussy’s “Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune”, Afternoon Of A Faun was a gentle piece which used a set of ballet rehearsal room in perspective. The two dancers - Vassilissa Levtonova, and Paul Liburd were excellent, the music was lovely and the whole worked superbly. This was followed by another duet, Two Pieces For Het, with music by Arvo Pärt and Erkki-Sven Tüür.

The evening finished with a long, full ensemble piece, In Light And Shadow. Set to several pieces by Bach, this was energetic and exciting dance. The dancers wore unisex costumes – some of the men in skirts, some of the women in trousers – and danced singly, in duet, in groups and en masse. It looked excellent, the dancers moving with elegance and fluidity.

(You can see pictures of the Scottish Ballet performance on the Edinburgh International Festival website.)

Niki King

Niki King was appearing in a tent outside Fettes College, where they held a weekend of jazz. I don’t normally like jazz singers, but I make an exception of King: she is great. She should be a household name – like the hobbit Cullum or any of the “jazz singers” who have been selling albums by the bucket-load over the past year or three. But then, if she were, we wouldn’t be able to see her in small gigs like this. The first time we saw her – a few years ago – she was bottom of the bill in a show which also included Tina May and Stacey Kent – singers who really are jazz singers – and she was by far the best singer all evening.

She played two sets at Fettes. The first was more jazzy, in duet with the pianist Paul Harrison: mostly jazz standards and ballads, this was a soulful set. She has a good jazz voice, and she brings the tunes to life, breathing feeling into phrases that are usually worn and familiar.



She had a good foil in Harrison, who brought a great deal of sensitivity to the songs: his playing matched her voice well, and he shone without upstaging her.

The second set added bass, drums and backing vocals to the mix, for a more pop-soul collection of songs, largely King’s own compositions. Harrison added an electric keyboard to the piano, allowing for the more funky nature of the songs. The bass and drums provided a solid backing, and backing singer Madelaine provided some vocal depth.



King had a great rapport with the audience: she knows how to work the crowd. There was a real party – even festival – atmosphere, quite rare for stormy Sunday evening in Edinburgh.