Summerhall, Edinburgh
Doom-scrolling and dopamine hits take centre stage in this arresting show in the festival’s Taiwan Season
You may not recognise the word but you will know the behaviour. Phubbing, currently under consideration for the Collins dictionary, is “to interact with a mobile phone in preference to people in a social setting”. Part of Taiwan Season at the fringe, Seed Dance Company’s arresting production begins with the familiar image of a figure hunched, barely seeming to breathe, lost in the glow of a smartphone.
Other dancers circulate, drawn to the screen like moths to a flame or performers seeking the spotlight, and there is a sequence seemingly evoking the desperate search for a signal. One of the four lies on the ground, their body sporadically jolting upwards with each hit of dopamine – or is it something more sinister? – from social media.