fringing it...

no- this is not a blog entry about making your own costumes....

this week i have been 'doing' the Edinburgh fringe festival.

Every august thousands of people flood to Edinburgh to enjoy and perform the arts. Comedy, theatre, dance music - its all there- non stop every day in almost every venue you can imagine. and this year a fantastic progression is the huge number of free fringe shows! I've been attending quite a few this week! Some ok, some awful and some amazing.

I loved 'The seven deadly sings' on at espionage in victoria street. a musical comedian who was intelligent and funny and talented and he was by far my favourite show of the fringe.

Another show that surprised me was 'the F word' in a venue on the north bridge. It was a group of girls, who sang and danced and mainly acted various stories of feminism. From foot binding to tribal nose cutting off, from domestic violence to mental illness. One actress actually had me in tears ... her acting was amazingly powerful... as was her message. the singing and dancing wasn't strong at all- but there were moments in the show that really blew me away and made it a show i got into for free- but actually if I had paid for it i would have considered it money well spent.

Last night i went to a ceilidh. SO much fun... I even met a couple of people there that i knew! 3 hours of fun jumping about to lively music... ahmed harfoush (the top jazz singer from cairo) was with us and was the star of the night.

today i am off to Dundee to teach a couple of workshops up there. Tomorrow i have my belly on the beach party on portobello prom (all welcome, just come along- 12-3pm by the dalriada), then next weekend i have glasgow workshop and show on the 27th and Edinburgh workshops on sunday the 28th. ( contact me asap if you want to reserve yourself a place on any of those...)

so the holiday was this week and now comes the 'work' - as much as dancing and teaching dance is ever 'work'. I know- I'm lucky!