Industry Event
Monday 24 August | 10:30 – 12:30
@ The Industry Hub, Dance Base, 14-16 Grassmarket, Edinburgh, EH1 2JU
#LoveDanceScotland partners are proud to present Spotlight on Dance From Scotland. During this event you will be able to discover a selection of some of the talented artists currently working in Scotland and find out more about their practice and projects through panel discussions and presentations. Following this, we welcome you to enjoy a moment for socialising and networking with catering provided. This event will also provide industry professionals the chance to engage with the Scottish organisations who develop dance both at home and build international relationships abroad. The aim will be to encourage wider engagement between Scottish and international industry colleagues, and we very much hope you’ll join us.
The artists presenting are:
- Just Us: Clare Adams and Lesley Howard
- Mele Broomes
- Farah Saleh
- Kirstin Halliday
Scroll down for artist biographies and further information.
The event will be facilitated by Luke Pell, an artist-dramaturge based in Leith, Edinburgh and our host for Spotlight on Dance from Scotland since its inception.
Supported by #LoveDanceScotland partners: Dance Base, The Work Room, Dundee Rep, Scottish Dance Theatre, Tramway, City Moves Dance Agency and Dance North.
Please note: This event is for industry professionals only. You should be someone who can provide a significant professional development opportunity such as a residency, commission or presentation, for an artist
And there’s more…attending Spotlight? Why not join us for Fringe Fragments. This year we bring Spotlight on Dance from Scotland and our international pitching event, Fringe Fragments, together on the same day for a Fr-Industry Special on Monday 24 August. Participants can attend both events, followed by a Fr-Industry reception. Schedule as follows:
- 10:30 – 12:30 Spotlight on Dance From Scotland
- 13:15 – 14:15 Fringe Fragments
- 14:15 – 15:30 Fr-Industry reception
For any of the above events, please register your interest below.
For any enquires please email fringesupport@dancebase.co.uk
Just Us: Clare Adam and Lesley Howard
Mele Broomes
An award-winning artist, Mele creates performances that sit between theatre, dance, and music, crafting storytelling that is both emotional and physical.
Her recent work, through warm temperatures, was presented at Lublin International Dance Festival, Actoral Festival Marseille, Dance International Glasgow, and Dance Base Festival 2025, and was originally commissioned to open the 20th anniversary of Edinburgh Art Festival. Her work has also been presented at Battersea Arts Centre, The Place, Festival del Silenzio Milan, Cultura Inglesa Festival, Whitechapel Gallery, and more.
Mele has played a leading role in establishing the Community Interest Companies Body Remedy and Project X Dance, Black and POC-led organisations in Scotland, prior to founding Glasgow’s new performance company, moniqux ensemble with debut work Dictations, The Heart of the Sea presented April 2026.
Recently Mele her solo and collaborative work in response to RESET by Alberta Whittle at IMMA, the Irish Museum of Modern Art and is a founding collaborative member of Immortal Sister Hood LIVE, a performance project developed in response to Gemma Cairney’s recently released book.
Farah Saleh
Farah Saleh is a Palestinian dancer, choreographer and scholar based in Scotland. She has studied linguistic and cultural mediation in Italy and in parallel continued her studies in contemporary dance. Since 2010 she has taken part in local and international projects with Sareyyet Ramallah Dance Company (Palestine), the Royal Flemish Theatre and Les Ballets C de la B (Belgium), Mancopy Dance Company (Denmark/Lebanon), Siljehom/Christophersen (Norway) and Candoco Dance Company (UK).
Saleh has also been teaching dance, coordinating and curating artistic projects, including the Sareyyet Ramallah Summer Dance School, which she co-founded in 2016. In 2014 she won the third prize of the Young Artist of the Year Award (YAYA) organized by A.M. Qattan Foundation in Palestine for her installation A Fidayee Son in Moscow and in 2016 the dance prize of Palest’In and Out Festival in Paris for the duet La Même.
She was an Associate Artist at Dance Base in Edinburgh 2017-2021 and in 2023 she earned her practice-based PhD from Edinburgh College of Art. In 2024, Saleh started a lectureship in Global Majority Performance at Theatre Studies Department at Glasgow University.
Website: www.farahsaleh.com
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Email: fsaleh@hotmail.com
Image credit: Lucas Chih-Peng Kao
Kirstin Halliday
Kirstin Halliday (they/them) is a dance artist and performer based in Glasgow who has choreographed, facilitated and performed in diverse contexts including; visual arts, music videos, club nights and community dance workshops.
Grounded by their research background in Geography, their movement practice is motivated by the co-generative relation between moving bodies, social space, and interpersonal relations and identities.
Their research at University of Glasgow and University of Iceland focused on emotional geographies, the geographies of the body, gender and movement.
This research ignited questions relating to bodily agency, identity and resistance through movement, questions that drive their work to date, as they consider the dancing body as a site of queer potentiality and gender fluidity.
Their current practice is orientated towards the creation of an absurdist dance work about lesbian lizards.
Website: theworkroom.org.uk/members/kirstin-alexandra-halliday/
Instagram: @dance_moves_for_friends
Image credit: Phyllis Christopher
Our Facilitator
Luke Pell is an artist-dramaturge based in Leith, Edinburgh. Our host for Spotlight on Scotland since its inception, Luke has worked with Dance Base in various ways over the years: as an Associate Artist, DEBS Mentor and Development Associate.
Alongside making their own long-form works in dance, performance and writing, Luke is a frequent face in our building. They are often found here – and elsewhere internationally – working as creative collaborator to an array of artists and arts-organisations engaged in alterity.
Most recently Luke has been working with Scotland-based artists Farah Saleh, K. Biff Nicolson, Simone Kenyon and Magnus Westwell; Danish company HimHerandIt; choreographer Jonathan Watkins, Rambert School and Siobhan Davies Studios in London; and with Claire Cunningham at the Inter-University Centre for Dance in Berlin as Research Associate.
Later this year Luke will begin their doctoral project in dance dramaturgy with the Centre for Dance Research at Coventry University and join a new cohort of THIRD research group with the Academy for Theatre and Dance in Amsterdam.
Contact: www.lukepellmakes.org
Image credit: Brian Hartley