Yes A few years ago, I was talking to Robert Lepage, one of the greatest exponents of physical theatre, about the difference between dancers and actors. He was in full collaboration with Sylvie Guillem and Russell Maliphant on Eonnagata and he could not overcome the contrasts between them. “Dancers are different animals than actors or writers,” he told me. “The creative impulses come from the body, from the muscles, from the movement. You have to let yourself go in this flow.

I thought of this conversation when I was watching Alan Cumming in Burn , in which the actor made his dance debut at the age of 57. Cumming would light up any club dance floor. Put it on stage in a room like The Bacchantes or a musical like Cabaret and ask him to move, and he will do it beautifully. But place it in the center of a room that communicates primarily through movement and the result is unsatisfactory.

Presented at the Edinburgh International Festival by the National Theater of Scotland, Burn tells the story of Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns, through his letters, the occasional snippet of poetry and plenty of choreography by Steven Hoggett and Vicki Manderson, accompanied by a passionate score by Scottish composer Anna Meredith.

Cumming, dashing around in long dark hair, a black vest and knickers (Katrina Lindsay suits), waves his arms jerkily, pulling shapes out of the air with his hands; he fidgets and frolics and collapses on the stage as Burns’ depression overwhelms him. He is energetic and the moments of jagged physicality, where the savagery of his gestures overwhelm his ability to control them, are striking. But it does not do what dance does, which is to transmute thought and feeling into physical realization. The movement seems applied to the performance rather than being its essence.

Without a script provided by the stages, there really isn’t a story. If you knew nothing of Burns, I doubt you could piece together much of his astonishing life, his journey from plowman to poet, his constant despair and abject poverty, from this impressionistic selection of words. Certainly, you would not understand the importance of his poetry, which is rare.

What you’re left with is Cumming’s unmistakable charisma, his ability to hold an audience in the palm of his hand with a look and a smile. It’s backed by a staggeringly beautiful production. Against a backdrop of monochrome video projections by Andrzej Goulding, which combine scenes and dates from Burns’ life with a ghostly image of a white horse, designer Ana Inés Jabares-Pita and lighting director Tim Lutkin provide a stormy and stormy scene, and the light shines through clouds.

Illusion consultant Kevin Quantum adds a feather that scribbles furiously on its own, and a stack of paper that magically rises up to take the shape of one of Burns’ followers. Chairs slide into place and tilt back as if floating. A line of shoes hangs from the fly, each representing one of the many women the poet seduces. It’s imaginative and carefully crafted, but it’s oddly empty.

ballet freedom from the Freedom Ballet of Ukraine was my surprise during a brief visit to the festival. This dark and sultry show, sort of a cross between a dirty take on Matthew Bourne and Pina Bausch, features some very questionable sexual politics, but it’s gloriously danced by people who have trained for years to feel the movement in their bones. .

Dark moments punctuate an atmosphere of rowdy eroticism. In one, a waiter hears a gunshot then spins boneless to look at himself in a mirror, his limbs like jelly. At another, a girl’s body falls from a wardrobe; three men take turns dancing with her limp body before putting her back in space. In the context of the war in Ukraine, such occasional acts of violence are doubly frightening. It’s a sight that stays in your head.

Star ratings (out of five)
Burn ★★★
ballet freedom ★★★★