Several large, empty picture frames are suspended from the ceiling. On the floor are the chalk outlines of bodies. Do they represent Icarus? Fallen angels? Maybe the people who jumped from the twin towers? Anyone who has fallen in love and crash-landed can lay claim to one of those chalky outlines.
The latest dance theatre piece from Potsdam's Fabrik, in collaboration with Jess Curtis/Gravity Physical Entertainment, is a marvellous piece of work: poetry in motion that is solid yet metaphysical, free yet grounded in ideas - full of the push and pull not just of gravity, but emotion.
Five performers and a cellist play games in this 70-minute production, in which movement and metaphor are perfectly married and a cheeky humour keeps sneaking in. The human body has seldom seemed quite so ethereal and yet so earthbound. Bodies tumble through the air, yet a raised arm flops back down as if it were made of lead. This is a piece for anyone who has tried to fly, who knows what flying feels like from their dreams, but cannot raise the dead weight of their body off the ground.
This is a beautiful, memorable show, seared with a sense of loss - because too often we forget how to fly and the rush of heart-stopping exhilaration that comes with the final dying fall. Yes, I fell for it. Head over heels.
Until August 24. Box office: 0131-558 3853.
