Dance
Medusa
Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
Mary Brennan
three stars
Ah yes, Medusa: the snakey-haired Gorgon whose stare could turn a man to stone - luckily heroic Perseus beheaded her, albeit waiting until she was asleep... For choreographer Jasmin Vardimon, this is only half the story. Medusa’s status as a vengeful monster came about when the goddess Athena punished her for being raped by Poseidon in Athena’s temple. The misogynistic injustice of this scenario is, in part, what drives Vardimon’s concepts and choreography but her take on Medusa goes beyond echoes of #MeToo outrage and - given that ‘medusa’ also means jellyfish - connects the Gorgon’s rape and victimhood to our current despoiling of the oceans with polluting plastics.
It’s an ambitiously broad, deliberatively non-narrative canvas, and unfortunately - not least because the 80 minute piece marks the 20th anniversary of Vardimon’s company - the episodic dots scattered across it don’t join up into a cohesive whole.
What does emerge, in various guises, is the dismissive contempt meted out by men to women across centuries. Sometimes it surfaces with a patronising shrug, brilliantly summed up by the ‘shadow’ sequence where a black-clad woman lying at the feet of a man mirrors his moves, as if unable to think or act for herself. Elsewhere, there’s an abusive groping that objectifies the women as if they were shop-window dummies or trophy companions. Meanwhile, a sea of billowing plastic is a striking visual metaphor for the suffocating forces that can trap women even as the Greek columns upstage are revealed as smoke-stacks belching out the fumes that affect climate change. So much of the design, the lighting, the collaged soundscore and, indeed Vardimon’s mix of choreographic styles, is touched with an engaging flair and invention - making you wish she had pared back the plethora of ideas and images that jostle for attention throughout. Her dancers are unstintingly flexible in mindset as well as body, bending limbs and acting skills with a focussed dynamic that Medusa itself lacks overall.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here