It must be spring! As the snow has mostly melted I’ve just put growing plants in DBHQ - and there's growing a-plenty occurring in the studios too. Nux, the company headed up by

the lovely Maite Delafin, are showing here on Friday. Please enjoy. I won't be there as I’m banging on about Dance Base at an event in Milan. The reason I mention this is because due to translation mis-firings I thought I was to open a discussion about the nomadic nature of dancers and was warming to this idea hugely. Many years ago I read The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin. Glorious. His main premise was that we are all intrinsically, deeply nomadic by nature (literally) and it seems to me that those who are so in tune with movement and who have such a heightened kinetic awareness are the ones to embody that philosophy. A natural evolution, likesy. So many dancers are doing that anyway of course. It's not the first time I’ve considered using our precious professional training budget not on workshops or bursaries, but on travel tickets! Thoughts? Plans?

I would like to take this moment to acknowledge the great stage hoofer/choreographer Wendy Toye who we lost to the great rehearsal room in the sky last week. Those versatile stage dancers were, and I hope still are, the great nomadic gypsies.

Another show I’ll  be sad to miss is Company Chordelia's Les Amoreaux at the Traverse Edinburgh this Friday with artistic director Kally Lloyd Jones, she who gracefully crossed the genre divide to direct Janacek's Katya Kabanova recently for Scottish Opera. Fabulous.

Lastly, the BBC recently broadcast a great radio piece about the Ballets Russes. They really don't make them like that anymore. Click here to step back in dance time and hear Marie Rambert teaching class, and various ballerinas of the old school being adorable and terrifying in equal measure.

I was thrilled to see Scottish Ballet opening their Tramway doors and minds to a choreographic lab recently. Paul Liburd, Diana Loosemore and Matthew Hawkins were amongst those making work to Steve Reich on the full company, and then later at the Tramway was New Moves showing Catherine Diverres' hypnotic, uncompromising work. Director Nikki Millican is soon to give the world one of the most stupendous National Reviews ever. Even for one who is prone to exaggeration (me) that’s still not an overstatement.

Lots to do, much to say….ain't life juicy?

Morag Deyes | Artistic Director

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