Sunday Editorial

By its very nature, much of the dance presented at the Fringe is intimate work performed by a small number of dancers. Non-professional companies, however, are able to stage larger-scale works. Dance Base hosts Something About Others, a quadruple bill featuring three contemporary ballet pieces danced by a dozen students from Nottingham Youth Dance. Zoo presents Burklyn Youth Ballet, a company of thirty dancers, who return to Edinburgh for their fifteenth year to present a new production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This promises to be a polished piece, and is one of the few narrative ballets on offer at either the Fringe or International Festival. In the past, dancers from this company have been taught by a roster of teachers so distinguished that it includes former New York City Ballet principal Edward Vilella, star of a company which aims to have no stars apart from the choreography. Just as George Balanchine tried to eschew hierarchy, larger-scale youth dance companies such as those from Burklyn and Nottingham are all about community.

Also at Zoo, community theatre stalwarts Chickenshed present Crime of the Century, an exploration of knife crime and its consequences. In contrast to Burklyn Youth Ballet’s traditional adaptation of a fairytale, London-based Chickenshed will show how community dance can mirror the issues affecting communities today. While hierarchical structures can lead to exclusivity, Chickenshed is all about inclusivity, with much of its annual activity focussing on outreach for those labelled as disadvantaged or disabled.

At St Stephen’s church in New Town, Trilogy features one hundred female volunteers, of all shapes and sizes, who are brave enough to appear naked onstage. These women will no doubt find safety in numbers and, just as Balanchine’s corps de ballet is as important as his ballerinas, this sense of community is just as important as perfect technique or perfectly-honed bodies. Performance aside, throughout August Dance Base is offering classes in everything from burlesque to ballet to bharatanatyam. These include classes for professionals, workshops led by visiting companies, and the Dance du Jour – a daily one-off opportunity to try out a new dance style.

As part of the International Festival, aspiring dancers can attend a workshop with Charles McNeal, the award-winning director of education at San Francisco Ballet. While an appearance at the International Festival is by invitation only, anyone who can find a room can perform at the Fringe, and anything that can possibly be transformed into a performance space becomes a venue: the Fringe itself champions inclusivity and community.