Edinburgh festival 2025: kicks and tricks in this summer's dance and circus shows

The Guardian

26-06-2025

The Quebec company We All Fall Down got good word-of-mouth at last year's fringe with their show Papillon. This year they bring another fusion of music, dance and storytelling in a show built around conversations between co-creator Roger White and his Jewish grandmother, who grew up near Hamburg and fled Nazi Germany for Edinburgh in 1939.
Summerhall, 31 July-25 August
The Australian circus crew bring back their hit show Ten Thousand Hours, a demonstration of the kind of skills that such a level of time commitment can generate. A reminder of just how hard circus really is and all the jeopardy, risk and thrill involved.
Assembly Hall, 31 July-24 August
Always reliably good, Australian company Circa have heart as well as muscle, alongside strong concepts and choreography and finely honed circus skills. This latest show puts elegant grace to one side in favour of the raw, feral and ferocious, as the acrobatic performers are driven by animal instincts.
The Lafayette at Underbelly's Circus Hub on the Meadows, 1-23 August
Winner of the creative arts prize at last year's Proud Scotland awards, Dundee-based company Shaper/Caper tell the story of LGBTQ+ nightlife in the 1980s and early 90s under the spectre of Aids and widespread homophobia, and the people searching for sanctuary, escapism and community on the dance floor.
Zoo Southside, 1-17 August
A show that comes with trigger warnings and no coyness about its subject matter: sex, disability and kink. Self-described 'queer crip' Dan Daw takes control of his own narrative by letting himself be dominated in this unique duet musing on power, pleasure, care and consent. These are the last performances after four years of touring.
The Lyceum, 2-4 August
Very much in sync with one of 2025's talking points, choreographer Natasha Gilmore looks at the subject of masculinity in Wee Man. Inspired by Gilmore's own experience as a mother of teenage boys, it features a multigenerational cast exploring the shifting rules of masculinity through the ages with dynamic movement and tenderness.
Assembly @ Dance Base, 5-17 August
Longstanding Dublin dance company CoisCéim returns to the fringe with director David Bolger's latest work, Dancehall Blues, which boasts excellent reviews from its Irish premiere last year. The setup is a duet in a surreal dance hall 'where dreams and nightmares collide', with the atmospheric, movement-focused work moving between hope and dystopia.
Assembly @ Dance Base, 12-24 August
Three dancers are hooked up to electric muscle stimulators, which are triggered by a Midi controller backstage, with the help of Luxembourg-based experimental choreographer Isaiah Wilson. All sorts of questions about free will are thrown up in a mere 30 minutes. Is this an experiment in human-digital-algorithmic interaction, or a vision of a dystopian future where the machines have taken over?
Assembly @ Dance Base, 12-24 August
A first trip to the Edinburgh fringe for award-winning French choreographer Léa Tirabasso. In the Bushes tackles the absurdity of life, in Tirabasso's own quirky, surrealist, sometimes grotesque way. Don't expect to know what's going on exactly, but if you like to have room in your dance to do some intellectual/imaginative digging, this could be for you.
Summerhall, 13-25 August
The dramatic life and rule of Scotland's 16th-century queen, told through the prism of her relationship with cousin and rival Elizabeth I. Choreographer Sophie Laplane and director James Bonas are at the helm, with Sunset Boulevard designer Soutra Gilmour giving the Renaissance era a punky makeover.
Festival theatre, 15-17 August
Usually at the centre of the Bristol dance scene, Impermanence take their new show to Edinburgh, blending cabaret, dance theatre and strong physicality to tell the story of Mary Richardson, who went from suffragette vandalising a Velázquez at the National Gallery in 1914 to becoming a leading figure in the British Union of Fascists.
Zoo Southside, 19-24 August
This urgent yet poetic treatise on environmental destruction and other current crises is a collaboration between Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite, Complicité director Simon McBurney and the fantastic dancers of Nederland Dans Theater. An atmospherically crafted work that's not afraid to tackle the big questions facing humanity today.
Festival theatre, 22-24 August