One childhood memory recurs in this vivid, bracingly personal show performed by the four brothers who run Taiwan’s Chang Dance Theatre. When their father took mangos from the fridge to prepare them, they would race to the kitchen in excitement. Bon 4 Bon manages to create its own heady rush as the quartet explore their family’s dynamics in a work that is as sweet as their favourite fruit. It’s a short piece, but it captures how siblings tumble through hot, humid days of summer.
Slices of mango fill a bowl on stage and are stuck to a stool and a mic stand where the men take turns offering recollections: each is an individual memory, yet inseparable from their shared identity. This is a portrait of family life at close quarters, most clearly illustrated by a sequence in which they swap socks and T-shirts as they recall all using the same wardrobe for their clothes.
Ten years separate the eldest and youngest brother, and Eyal Dadon’s choreography often isolates one of the four before bringing the group harmoniously together. B-boy moves morph into the action-man stances of childhood games, as they play-fight and show off. Repeatedly they race to the front of the stage to adopt a jokey Charlie’s Angels-style pose that feels like one of many in-jokes with a significance only the brothers understand. This is never distancing but instead increases the intimacy of the performance.
Two music choices seem to freeze these movements as memories: Paul McCartney’s Blackbird and, most powerfully, Bon Iver’s 666 ʇ, which suits the soulful stillness that runs through the moves even when the four are goofing and spiralling around the stage. In one tender scene they take turns to lie on top of each other: their bodies and features each similar yet unique, like a row of mangos.
- At Dance Base, Edinburgh, until 26 August.
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