Real Women Dancing

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