Dancebase's Gift Selection
The National Centre for Dance throws open its studios to audiences but once a year in an exploion of possibilities.
Even spending a short amount of time with Morag Deyes is to be plunged into a whirlpool of enthusiasms and informed opinions. Her Fringe programme at Dancebase is a perfect expression of her attitude- diverse, inclusive and challenging, but not without humour. Explicitly political works jostle with the intimate, breaking meets contemporary, film challenges choreography. The double and triple bills- along with the bargain prices for Heads Up events- offer audiences the chance to catch rising talents and cutting edge experimentation.
Not only has this year's programme been extended- "I couldn't make the theatre bigger, so I made the season longer," she chuckles- it features more new work, more experimentation. "I call it my gift to the Edinburgh dance audience," she says. "I am interested to see what audiences get from it- because there is a mixture of things, no theme, only original work with bags of integrity.
The main programme consists of two works for families, three mixed bills and Plan B's site-responsive Parallel/Parallels. This is followed by Stripped- a week of performances in daylight, featuring both completed works- Aurora Borealis by Lazzi and Inbetween by Willi Dorner-and many works in progress. Morag's enthusiasm is only halted by an unreasonable question.
"Which one of my children do I love the most? How can I say that?" She appears shocked when I ask which pieces she is most anticipating. "But it's not so much what I want to see- it's more what I know that the fringe audience is going to get. Recently I saw this duet from Iceland, Crazy In Love with Mr Perfect and it was an unexpected joy. People are going to pitch up and think, this looks weird and then it will change the way they look and think about dance. It's an absolute gem.
Closer to home, Morag also selects the return of a British choreographer. "I am really excited about Rosie Kay's Double Points: K, because it is very rare to see such a contemporary piece remixed. And this is absolutely pared back- and really full-on dance, and a reminder what an amazing dancer she is."
Many of the works demonstrate how versatile dance can be, by taking on difficult subjects and giving them a resonance that other art forms would struggle to replicate. Morag's third choice is a case in point. "Hanging In There is a deconstruction of the Good Friday Agreement- it seemed a bit dry at first," she acknowledged. "But actually, it is about any negotiation that is happening on the planet- from the one you are having with your partner to the ones at the UN."
It's exactly this quality that makes dance so vibrant and so appealing: so much of the fringe uses the same old tricks- tried scripts, tested musicals, big name authors, fashionable issues or news items. Dance is capable of breaking past the predictable, shocking and representing the impossible. "A lot of the time, dance doesn't need language- in fact, language just makes things more complicated," Morag affirms. The Stripped programme is especially revolutionary, being a response to Morag's desire to extend the programme and offer an opportunity to more performers. "We offered this fabulous space bang in the middle of the city to dancers for free. The stuff that is going to be in that programme there is going to be challenging. You are seeing the possibilities of what dance can do. You know that they are going to take a chance."
A programme of this size does offer something for all tastes, but it also offers the unexpected, the random: it is best enjoyed as a whole. Dancebase becomes more than another venue- it is a hub for argument, for discussion and resolution, a gift for anybody who loves theatre and wonders where it is going to go next.