The Disappeared review

Nova Duh slinks down the stairs of a Summerhall’s cavernous dissection room in a corset, her face strikingly striped with turquoise and vermillion. Despite the lunchtime time slot, the space has a late-night vibe as Nova teasingly peels off her gloves and much else besides.

Nova struts and purrs about the space, explaining her journey towards feeling comfortable in a non-binary body, and fusing cabaret and burlesque with the stories of queer people who have been persecuted by various governments in South America. She discusses how gay bars in her hometown don’t last long – they just disappear – and how being visibly queer carries a level of risk.

Gestures of ritual and resistance are threaded through the show. We are handed pots and pans to bang – a gesture of protest in South America. Accompanied by musician Josh Herring, Nova bears herself and her body, the show building towards a gorgeous ballroom-esque sequence in which she emerges with a pair of beautiful blue fans with trailing fabric tails. The increasingly intense performance is woven with further accounts of brutality and hate crime.

There’s a structural bagginess to the show and the storytelling is not always coherent – we are offered a QR code for further context – but while Jeremy M Thomas-Bøgsted’s production is sometimes overly reliant on Nova’s considerable charms, its fusion of form makes for a unique experience and its closing seconds hit hard.