120 Birds

120 Birds is a light-hearted tale of a dance company’s international tour during the roaring 20s. With strong characters, beautiful costumes and original footage from the era it is an engaging and accessible show.
Director, Liz Lea, narrates the story with a charismatic and humorous style, taking the audience on a journey from the formation of the fictional dance troupe, through their heyday, to the company’s eventual break-up. Both the narrative and a projected backdrop of vintage film clips place the story in context. Although the footage shown is genuine, this is not a straightforward history lesson since the images are compiled in a quirky manner to fit the narrative, sometimes jumping between years and events, but always carefully chosen to add to the show.
At times 120 Birds relies too much on this narrative and footage to tell the story, and the dances themselves do not naturally flow into one another. Having said that, there is some great choreography within the show, from a graceful tango piece to a humorous interpretation of the Charleston.
120 Birds is a whimsical and enjoyable show, and very easy to watch. As with all their shows, Dance Base guarantee that if you do not enjoy it they will offer you a free ticket to an alternative show instead. Considering the hit and miss nature of Fringe viewing, this makes Dance Base a fairly risk free way to check out performances which you may not have heard of or wouldn’t usually see. Worth checking out.

3/5

Anna Price