Artistic Director Recommends – July 2025

I recently attended the Portuguese Platform of the Performing Arts held in Lisbon and Montemor-o-Novo, a small town about 1hr east of Lisbon and home to the infamous O Espaço do Tempo. This was a former monastery that became a dance powerhouse in Europe, founded and led by choreographer Rui Horta. Rui cultivated a formidable artistic reputation at home and abroad. I started becoming aware of his name and reputation and was keen to see his work. I finally got my chance via the New Territories festival in 2008 where Rui presented Scope. You can read about it here. I have encountered the new director, Pedro Barreiro at various events in previous years. I found many similarities to his new environment as to arriving at Dance Base as new director. We had both taken over from founding directors who led the organisation for over 20 years. We were both practicing artists. And both our organisations were heavily geared towards supporting the independent artist sector (O Espaço do Tempo works with around 600 artists delivering 100 residences a year). So it was with keen interest that I attended the Platform. Both to see what fresh insights were coming out of Portugal, but also to see how things were going for Pedro. The work was young, raw, powerful and uncut and encapsulated the bursting diversity within the country, the way it’s addressing its past, challenging the present and aspiring to the future. I can see Pedro’s hand at work, and with a well-oiled and friendly team can only assume things are going well. Most works weren’t suitable for our festival stage or where it might have been possible, could have benefitted from further development. But the level of passion, risk taking and honesty was exceptional. Please peruse the programme here.

My visit led me to wonder what one might think or feel about Scotland, were they to visit a similar event. I like to think that this year’s programme of Scottish dance artists performing as part of our festival (12 out of 29 artists/companies this year) does give a taste of what we are negotiating in our society. And what is a testament to these artists is how they’ve each captured something urgent and reflected through a unique, diverse and dynamic lens. And we are also lucky to have festivals like Hidden Door, who continue to push the boundaries of performance in Edinburgh and delivered an excellent programme of dance form a number of independent artists. This included Cosmic Dance who were selected to be part of the festival as a result of our Hidden Door x Dance Base scratch night collaboration.  

I was really happy to see Pedro’s success and was impressed by the strength and radical nature of the artistic scene in Portugal. But I’m equally impressed with the work Scottish artists will present on our programme this year. And the work artists and other festival at home are doing, to keep capturing and reflecting our society and pushing to reach audiences. So, with that said we will be here to move you this August. Come and say hello!