The Butterfly that Flew into the Rave - Edinburgh Fringe 2025

The Butterfly that Flew into the Rave

Summerhall

The dancer-choreographer and New Zealander Oli Mathiesen, and dancers Lucy Lynch and Sharvon Mortimer are already dancing as the audience make their way to their seats. The room is darkened. There are coloured lights that occasionally throb with the music. The music is adrenaline-pumping hard techno at full blast – courtesy of Suburban Knight’s Nocturbulous Behaviour album. There is no story or theme – this is an experience!

The work is described as an “ode to the past 3-year marathon of losing societal morals and political structure” during the pandemic, a “communal loss of work, time, love, sex, eating, fighting, cleaning, holidaying, sleeping, pashing, drinking, throwing up, everything, physicalised as an artefact of what we as a people have endured”.

Essentially this production is three dancers performing detailed choreography to rave music.  For an hour. This is a breathtaking and incredible high intensity feat. It isn’t just moved on repeat but a varied palette of styles. The audience are transfixed, and the youthful energy is infectious.  Do they falter?  Well, that’s part of the point but these dancers just keep moving through the pain. There is something hypnotic about watching physical feats onstage – I guess that’s why we love the Olympics and professional sports that push the body.  It’s even better when we can see it in the theatre.

This is a rave where everyone is welcome - While some of the big iconic clubs around the world have dress codes, such as all leather, all black or skimpy or kinky, anyone keen to dance themselves can wear what they like. Mathieson and dancers wear an amalgamation of all dress codes - including fur hats, athleisure, and bras.

The music is loud.  They take a few moments to have a drink of water.

Conceived during the pandemic, Oli Mathieson says “We were working through lots of emotions while making this work, but most prominently was a hunger and desire to create a work that encompassed a sense of epicenes and also humility. How do we make a work that is so beyond our capabilities that no human feat would be able to achieve it, while still injecting it with heart, camaraderie, passion, and fight? I think these were the emotions or sensations that were distilled from the pandemic. A force of nature that levelled the playing field globally and therefore unified us through our shared losses. We felt the emotional pressure to make a work that represented this sensation accurately.”

This show is taking the world by storm – go see it!

Reveiw by Kate Gaul