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Audicia Lynne Morley, Taira Restar, State Theta Galleries and Chuwori Web Design have joined forces to create this years City Dance 2012.

To celebrate the Scottish Government's new initiative on Dance: Get Scotland Dancing and Big Dance we are putting out a call to gather 100 dancers, artists, musicians, experienced and non-experienced participants to take part in this year's City Dance.

Inspired by Hugh MacDiarmid’s poem:
“...and so I have gathered together unto myself all those lose ends of Scotland. And by naming them and accepting them, loving them and identifying myself with them, attempt to express the whole”
City Dance 2012 will work with dancers, artists, musicians and performers from around Scotland and beyond to develop a site specific performance that embraces the iconic work of America's leading post modern dance pioneer, Anna Halprin.

“My intentions for City Dance were to engage people with their environment and to engage people with people-- to celebrate the unity of community through a diversity of various social, ethnic and economic cultures.”
-Anna Halprin, February 2011

City Dance, performed throughout the city of San Francisco on July 24, 1977, was choreographed by Anna Halprin and was performed by her dance company, her students and by the citizens of San Francisco. City Dance transformed the entire city into a conceptual stage.

During August 2012, Taira Restar (USA), artist, educator and close associate of and performer with perfomer with Anna Halprin and Audicia Lynne Morley (Scotland), dancer, choreographer and artistic director of State Theta Galleries will direct City Dance 2012 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world’s largest arts festival.

Anna Halprin, now 91 years old and living in California, is currently offering her guidance via in-person interviews with Taira and Audicia.

Like the original City Dance, the August 2012 performance will claim the entire city of Edinburgh as a found stage and it’s residents' activities will be found choreography. It will take place in several locations throughout the city with scored enactments happening in various locations simultaneously. Additionally, the pathway that links the locations will be part of the performance.

A hallmark of Anna Halprin’s approach is task-oriented movement such as walking, standing, facing and carrying. City Dance will feature these types of daily life movements, which will make it accessible to any pedestrian who is interested in spontaneously participating in the performance.

What makes City Dance a unique dance opportunity? 
City Dance...

• Offers dance to people and invites people to dance. 
• Provides a dance performance experience-- giving people with and without previous dance experience an opportunity to perform.
• City Dance closes the gap between performer and audience.
• Broadens the definition of dance with a primary vocabulary of daily life movements.
• Invites people to view life as an artistic experience.
  
• Heightens people’s awareness of the city environment.
• The city itself and its pedestrians become inspiration, “stage” and dance partner. 
  
• City Dance is an integration of life and art, of self, community and environment.

Performance and Workshop Dates >>>

Both Audicia and Taira are internationally known teachers and performers. They have trained at the Tamalpa Institute California ,which was founded by Anna and Daria Halprin. Taira is currently on core faculty for the Californian Institute and Audicia is assistant director of the newly opened Tamalpa UK branch.

We would like to give thanks...

City Dance Edinburgh was first performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2011. The 2011 project was produced by Audicia Lynne Morley, Taira Restar and Kate Craik. The project was sponsored by many supporting organizations and individuals including Chuwori Web Design, Company Chordelia, Creative Scotland, State Theta Galleries and Tamalpa UK.

To read more on the original City Dance performance:
Anna Halprin: Experience As Dance, Janice Ross, University of California Press, 2007