If the prologue to ‘Inventing the sky’ is anything to go by then the weather isn’t the only thing that should warn you off Russian beaches. This piece of contemporary dance from St Petersburg starts with four annoying youths larking around gracelessly in swimsuits as a soundtrack of rolling waves (or is that tumbleweed?) accompanies the ‘action’. After twenty minutes you begin to wonder if the performers are going to start moving in a way that could reasonably be described as dance.
Eventually the scene changes to the city and some long-overdue music begins to ignite the performers. The youths have grown up and represent the isolation of city life with growing confidence and an increasingly creative use of props. Wheel-mounted chairs, tables and costume-hangers are ridden across the stage in a crescendo of angst and heartache as the now excellent score moves seamlessly from haunting accordions to rock guitars. The characters each take individual journeys through their metropolitan lives – experiencing love, work, depression and death. However the disconnection experienced by the characters is too often represented by unconnected solo dance. The performers move with passion but rarely have any physical contact with one another, which limits the choreography rather unnecessarily.
As a visual spectacle too, the piece is short on scale, and memorable images are too few and far between. Regrettably ‘Inventing the sky’ lacks the sort of invention you are likely to find elsewhere in the Fringe’s Dance listings this year.
2/5 
Ian Armstrong
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