Ballet Freedom

Technically and visually stunning and sensual dance performance. I found some of the trope interactions between men and women to be tired stereotypes (especially punching down on drag). Still a beautiful performance even with that in mind. 4/5

Just beautiful, transcends any preconceived viewer prejudices, this is art for the people. Enjoy the skill and passion. No faux-nationalism or jingoism, not overtly ukrainian but the best possible amabassadorial positivity about what Ukraine is, viz more than merely ukrainian. Just like Scotland. Great match for Edinburgh Fringe objectives, superb counter to the overcommercialised London 2nd-rate invasion.

One of the best shows this year, in my opinion: well coordinated, and technically well done.

Best show of 2022 Fringe. It gets standing ovations.
Sensual, sexual and provocative. Dancing a story of real life, good and bad.
Members of audience gently invited to interact.
One or two scenes symbolic of Ukraines war with Russia.
This is for lovers of contemporary dance and great music. Ravel's Bolero and Deborah's theme from Once Upon a Time in America, included.

Not a ballet but very well structured and astonishly performed cabaret. Joyful sensual show.

I LOVED THIS SHOW. I have seen at least one fringe show every day of the month, and this was by far my favourite. I can’t believe this show isn’t sold out yet, it’s just fabulous. I’ve never seen a group of performers with so much energy and skill and dynamism. I thoroughly recommend

Absolutely superb and a tribute to Ukrainian resilience. Anyone being in any way offended should go to a little more live theatre - especially using balloons for pregnancy in quick-change, humorous scenarios. Using limited props, audience participation and frequent costume changes this troupe brought the auditorium to life and the standing ovation was thoroughly warranted. We’ll done Ballet Freedom (and Ukraine).

To read our DARKHAT review please click on this link :

https://www.darkchat.co.uk/team/ballet-freedom

Not a tutu or ballet shoe in sight! This show knocked my socks off!!! I saw 16 shows at the fringe and this was the one I will remember.

My take is it is about sex, crude, funny, inventive, vulgar, sad, joyous, desperate, casual sex. Sit back and enjoy!

I loved this show! I found it joyful, full of life and humour and energy and innovative choreography, amazing dancers and then suddenly tinged with melancholic moments which brought tears to my eyes. It reminded me that happiness can be very fleeting. For me, Boudoir has a Grand Budapest Hotel vibe with bellhops on. Too much sex? Joyful, passionate, flirtatious, tangoliscious, dahling and funny sex! Where the men (sometimes) also danced with other men, and the women (sometimes) danced with other women and men (sometimes) dance in dresses. Consensual, sensuous dirty dancing where the women give as good as they get, lifting, wrestling, and generally coming out on top. Too much nudity? The flash of a cheeky bottom, an occasional escaped booby! I loved this show but I nearly didn't go because I read a review in The Guardian. I am so glad I went to make up my own mind!

I really wanted to love this show. It had great reviews and a Ukrainian world class troupe. I thought these must produce brilliant entertainment. Nope. First the good. The performers are brilliant dancers. Skilful and committed. The choreography fantastic. Great set and lighting. Cool costumes. Thumping music. But…overall it felt like it had escaped from 1930s Berlin. Decadent, crude and knowingly obscene. The dry humping started early and intensified as time passed, mixed in with mock-oral sex. So much of it! A teenager’s fantasy. Flashes of bare (female) bottom, the odd knickerless woman, some flashes of breast all suggested that this was designed for the male gaze and perspective. One scene involved an unconscious woman being sexually assaulted by three men. I felt uncomfortable and then repelled. The standing ovation at the end surprised me. Was it down to the Ukrainian backstory? Well, this performance had nothing to say about the war, so I really don’t know. Should you give it a try? Possibly. You won’t see much like this at the Fringe. Thank goodness. I think you will find better elsewhere.

An absolute must-see!! Thrilling, hilarious, and provocative, this is an experience like no other. Riveting dance performances mixed with excellent clowning, physical theatre, and cabaret, these performers left us with our jaws dropped for most of the evening. This is a show you could watch more than once and still make new discoveries every time. We loved it!

Let’s be clear, this is not ballet, it’s cabaret. We wanted to enjoy this show, given its provenance, but we found the depictions of sexual violence hard to take. The sexual innuendo and attitudes (pelvic thrusts, heads in groins, balloons up dresses to simulate pregnancy) were from the sixties. If you like this sort of thing the production values were high and the dancers competent. But not to everyone’s taste.

This show was absolutely jaw dropping. Definitely the best I've seen so far in this years fringe. The performers are extremely talented. It's a high high quality show. Be aware of highly
sexual content of it though. Otherwise prepare to be amazed!! Bravo!

The best show we have seen at the Fringe by some way. The performance was emotionally challenging in parts but the skill and ability of the dancers was outstanding.
We are going to see it again.

Provocative but fun; extremely talented performers, masters of physical comedy; absurdist plot; interactive. Modern/contemporary as opposed to classic ballet - mind the warnings (and points made in other reviews about sexual violence), but otherwise an excellent time.

These show notes warn of 'scenes of a sexual nature' but do not mention the graphic sexual violence which is also played out on stage. In one opening scene a clearly unconscious woman is sexually assaulted by three seperate men. These men then appear to take trophies from her lifeless body. I would encourage anyone who has been a victim of sexual violence to carefully consider whether this show is right for them. I would also encourage this site to update their show description to more accurately portray the nature of this show.

Amazing performances and choreography. Very moving. The interpretation has polarised people but I saw it as the violation of Ukraine and the fight back rather than gender based or patriarchal .

I don’t know what the hell happened as I felt like I was transported to Narnia on acid, but this is an hour of my life I’ll never get back. A bizarre combination of skits blending soft porn with roast chicken. Avoid.

Best show on fringe festival. I visited some more (about 10 shows) and I could not found any better

A beautiful, sensual and perfectly executed contemporary ballet performance. Made me cry and made me happy. Worth seeing for sure

While the dancers are very skillful and the stage design is amusing, the overall choreography and music is very underwhelming. From a gender point of view, the whole show is very heteronormative and binary, and the show also includes a lot of gender-specific violence, which is quite unsettling. It's a bit sad to see genders are still presented in such a flat way in such a grand show in 2022.

Amazing definitely the best show we have seen at the fringe. Graceful, thought provoking passionate and sensitive. I can’t recommend this company enough. Thank you. Seeing other comments come through the reviews…everyone has individual preferences and ways of processing the art in front of them. The world would be vanilla without this difference, people take different thoughts away with them at the end of this adaptation. Personally I looked beyond the flesh to the movement and grace and skills of the performers Well done all involved

The dancers were limber and interesting but we found the theme verging on soft porn and some of it miming violent porn. Nothing in the description prepared us for such a lengthy sexualized performance. It wasn’t our taste. Also the music was way too loud. Unnecessary. Our ears were still ringing after the show.

I took my 9 year old and we both really enjoyed it. I would say though that I think a lot of it went straight over her head - a slightly less naive kid would have had a lot of new knowledge after this show! Really engaging but would suggest being mindful of the warnings (though there's no nudity -that was the main warning and I'm not bothered by that - but the dancers are often scantily clothed and enjoying lots of sexy times! And some murder)

An excellent, entertaining and engaging show!