Back of the Bus is an irreverent and engaging site-specific dance performance. The audience arrive at a scheduled meeting point in the city, and when we get to the site we find a tour guide holding up a placard. So even before we reach the bus, the performance has begun – we area group sharing an experience.
It is a little strange as we are led along like tourists accompanying a city guide (a not uncommon sight in Edinburgh during August!), and the feeling of being in a totally new situation is established. And so we arrive at our tour bus. The group settles on the top deck of a classic red double-decker, and off we go.
Laughter and curious glances spread around the small space, as the rain blurs the glass windows of the bus. Our guide is positioned at the front, ahead of the passengers, and makes an announcement about the route and stops. Our first stop is on the Meadows, and later we are taken into shopping streets – and even into a building. So the performance is not limited to the back of the bus, it extends out from there.
The tour is great fun. The short dance performances (on the bus, or in the streets or parks) give us small doses of movement work that is either modelled on realistic/gestural movement, or is more abstract. We are all surprised by what ensues at each location, be they solo or ensemble choreographies. When new performers emerge from within our number, it is particularly exciting.
But the highlight of the show is the experience of the journey itself. Gradually people begin to relate to each other, changing places on each return to the bus, and thus we become complicit in this experience. The artists promote a an environment of exchange amongst us all, as the boundaries between art and life blur. When creativity moves to other places outside of the theatres and galleries, there are powerful forces at work, reinventing the complex relations between audience, artist, space, and time.
Congratulations Java Dance Theatre – you took us on an interesting journey, literally and metaphorically, on the Back of the Bus.