The gang is all here!! All seven muses of A Mused Collective are now finally in Edinburgh. As our last to arrive, Jenjen, touched down, the clouds parted and we had a gloriously sunny day here in this city of “green, rain and stone” as Krystal says.  There seems to be a heat wave every time A Mused Collective performs and I don’t think anyone in Edinburgh will mind if the California sunshine stays with us here for the next two weeks!

I started this beautiful day with a hike up to the scenic overlook of Calton Hill with Abby and Tony (see pictures above of our early morning antics).  From the peaceful morning hilltop we prepared ourselves for the real start of our Fringe experience, for our performance baptism tomorrow. We will start the morning on the iconic Royal Mile where we will do our very first street performance. On the historic cobblestone street teeming with people, with the Edinburgh castle as the backdrop, we will gather an audience to a postage-stamp of a stage to preview Fragment. And we are among the lucky few groups that have one of these little pop-up stages that dapple the street every few meters. While the Fringe has a strict application process for street performances, the thousands of performers that have descended upon this fair city just can’t help themselves! People resourcefully stage all kinds of theatrics to market their shows; playing dead on the street in a postcard chalk line, donning crazy costumes, and reciting monologues as they walk. We look downright tame in our short shorts, tie flair and bustles!

After our street performance prelude tomorrow, we will debut Fragment in the garden theatre of the Greenside Parish, a perfectly quaint stone church. Though the church is right down the street from the Royal Mile, it seems far removed from the mayhem. At the base of Calton Hill, the active parish feels like a retreat, a little performance hideaway. Greenside has turned every bit of their grounds into performance space for the Fringe, and while it feels removed, it is a well-attended and well-respected performance venue. Martha Graham famously said,  “Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.” Performingin a space like Greenside, on their holy grounds, we are reminded that we dance and we share our dance because it nourishes our souls and offers us respite amidst the craziness that is Fringe.  It is a spiritual act in many ways.

Of course, we welcome the crazy, which is why we are here! So, here’s to our Fringe debut tomorrow. May all the spirits, gods and angels be with us! - Shelly

We just finished our last rehearsal here in Oakland before we embark on our journey to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.  We are still tweaking Fragment - adding new movement, changing lyrics – refining the piece and finding the depth. But we are ready! We have logged over 200 hours of rehearsal and raised thousands of dollars for this opportunity to present A Mused Collective to the biggest performing arts marketplace in the world. 

We will be among thousands of shows, thousands of artists from around the world. This journey will test our mettle and it will inspire us. What an incredible opportunity for a bunch of real women (and 1 man - sorry Tony, my girl-power pride is going to take over for a sec here). We dancers are real women, women who have careers and families. We dance all together twice a week at most – often after full work-days. With only a few hours a week of rehearsal, it is through sheer discipline, desire, will power and fantastic leadership that we have created this work. And this piece Fragment, celebrates exactly that – the fact that we are real women – multifaceted, emotional, competitive, collaborative and everything in between. We are exquisitely flawed and fragmented. This piece is not about perfect dance technique or super-human tricks or flawless harmonies. That is not who we at A Mused Collective are. Don’t get me wrong, we are good dancers and good musicians, but that’s not what is fundamental. Fundamentally, we are a dedicated and scrappy bunch who carve out time to create together by celebrating what Abby calls the “ness” - the goodness, the rawness, the humanness – the essence and the energy that is in the room at the time.  We can’t wait to bring our “ness” To Scotland. We will share our experiences here in these musings. Thank you all for your support and generosity! Next time from Edinburgh! -Shelly

For my pre-Fringe musings published by InDance
check out the link below - 
Edinburgh or Bust: Getting to the Fringe Festival

Stay connected to A Mused Collective and learn about their upcoming experiences at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland.