Up until the moment when six-year-old Agata pees herself, the youngsters (age 11+) around me have been giggling away at the oddball members of her extended family: at the larger-than-life screaming matches, huffs and hugs of these Berlin Jews who will - as the threat of the Holocaust looms - send this child to England on the kindertransport. Like the "hide in the wardrobe from the police" game that the family play, Agata's journey seems a make-believe adventure until the moment when - train about to depart, no time to find a toilet - water splashes down her frock and legs. The extending silence declares that New International Encounter's The End of Everything Ever has unerringly hit home.
Few will have experienced the loss of parents, home - even identity - that Agata does. Or the bewildering ways of strangers in a strange land. NIE - holders of a Bank of Scotland Herald Angel for a previous show - are adept at giving harsh, factual history a touchingly human face. And at mixing comedy and tragedy so as to open our hearts and minds to a past that must not be forgotten. Agata returns, as an adult, to Berlin: but her family has been silenced. Simple, versatile staging and a talented cast of actor-musicians with a passion for telling true stories with gusto and compassion - definitely a highlight of this year's Kidfest.
So too was Kylian4Kidz. Introdans Ensemble for Youth (from the Netherlands) presented audiences aged eight and over with works by one of the world's choreographic greats: Jiri Kylian. It's an uncompromising, uncondescending approach that tolerates hoots of laughter at the gawky, animalistic shapes of Stamping Ground and then builds a quiet appreciation of more lyrical works. It helps, of course, that the dancers are accomplished technicians with a ready sense of humour - now, could they tour beyond Edinburgh, please? Aracaladanza's Nada... Nada! was a jolly cavalcade of fishy puppets, stunning costumes and some flipper-y flamenco that gave the 3+ age-group a taste of Busby Berkeley choreography, tongue-in-cheek sight-gags and a fabulous mermaid who swam through the darkness. Let's hope when these tots are older they get a chance to see Theater Sgaramusch (from Switzerland). Their Wolf Under the Bed was a cunningly constructed, hugely entertaining network of old legends and new myths about wolves, acted out with just the right degree of scare-your-friends conviction and bravura howlings.
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