Dance in Edinburgh

Edinburgh’s dance scene features a strange dichotomy: 11 months of the year things go on at a steady pace then in August the floodgates open with the Edinburgh International Festival ( www.eif.co.uk ) and the Festival Fringe ( www.edfringe.com ). From a performance point of view there are several venues: the Festival Theatre (www.eft.co.uk) – new, comfortable and showing superb large contemporary dance productions (recently Matthew Bourne’s Edward Scissorhands and shortly Scottish Ballet’s Triple Bill of Balanchine's Episodes, Petronio's MiddleSexGorge and William Forsythe’s Suite from Artifact), The Playhouse ( www.thisistheatre.com/regional/edinburghplayhouse ) – hosting ballet (the ubiquitous Ellen Kent touring company!) and musicals, the Kings – grouped with the Festival, and the Traverse ( www.traverse.co.uk ) which is a more intimate venue for smaller contemporary productions. During the Festival almost anywhere becomes a potential venue but notably Dancebase ( www.dancebase.co.uk) transforms itself into a theatre with some of the best performances. Also notable during the festival is Aurora Nova at St Stephens (www.auroranova.org) which features international dance and physical theatre.
Educationally, Telford College ( www.ed-coll.ac.uk ) does courses in dance for qualifications at various levels, Queen Margaret University College ( www.qmced.ac.uk ) has dance elements in its Drama courses and in the private sector, Dance For All (www.nimbiz.com/4032002 ) runs student courses in dance. For a pure contemporary dance course then Dundee hosts the Scottish School of Contemporary Dance ( www.dundeecoll.ac.uk/sscd ).
The aforementioned Dancebase is the principal centre for classes from absolute beginners through to professional level, next port of call would be Dance for All. There are classes in various parts of the city in other forms of dance from Swing through to Tango.
There are several dance companies and artists in Scotland either based or regularly performing in the Edinburgh area e.g. X-Factor, Curve Foundation, David Hughes, Jenna Agate. For more information I’d suggest using the Scottish Arts Councils website and following the various dance options - www.scottisharts.org.uk .

I know Rachel Feinerman has placed a link to Tartan Leotard on her excellent New York dance blog www.downtowndancer.com so I’d welcome any questions/comments from the US.