Take the warren of interesting spaces that exists at Summerhall, add in the programming flair of Glasgow's Buzzcut, with its emphasis on new work by radical young artists, and you have a really enterprising start to Manipulate 2013 – one that flags up the potent energy of visual imagery in performance.
Sarah Hopfinger's Age Old revisited an earlier solo where she gently melded childhood memories of place with shifts in outlook brought about by an adult perspective. This new episode saw her in cahoots with the unselfconsciously-forthright Carragh McLiven, aged seven. Again, a core strand was the natural world both real and as filtered through the prism of a child's imagination. But Carragh was no mini-Sarah, even when she echoed Hopfinger's movements or picked up on games-playing cues. What emerged was a tender, merry yet affecting dialogue about the distances – in noticing, understanding, believing –that grow in, and with us across years. The footage of them attempting to fly, with air-filled plastic bags as wings, was a joyous reminder that age needn't wither dreams or optimism.
Murray Wason's Automaton, originally a durational process, is now a handsomely distilled solo full of mischievous humour and profound humanity. And if his discourse on machines, his intense anthem of memories to a much-loved Grandfather, underline the automaton's inability to feel emotions he still celebrates the fact that to be fascinated by their technology is only human.
For Carles Casallachs and his dance partner in Por Sal y Samba, the slinky-sexy Latin American moves swiftly shimmy from flirtation to power struggle and a physical brutality that leaves him retching, and some onlookers feeling wretched at the well-crafted cruelty. Not Strictly – but very Manipulate.
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