Dance Your Cares Away

If like me you've had enough of the January joyless telling you about their crash diets and gym regimes, can I suggest you steal a march on them all by dancing your cares away and maybe even losing weight in the process?

Word on the net is that Fringe award winners Sensational Salsa and Buxton’s historic Old Hall Hotel, a crucial Fringe venue, are putting the fun back into February with a special Salsa party night on the 7th.

  

The Latin-themed evening, which will take place in The Old Hall’s plush Restaurant and Lounges on Friday February 7th from 7pm, will feature a glass of Sangria on arrival, a Salsa and Merengue demonstration from experts Linval Smith and Justine Spivey and fish or vegetarian paella to follow. The party-goers will then be invited to join a beginners’ Salsa class and then enjoy some freestyle Salsa dancing until 11pm.

   

Tickets cost £22.50 all in and are bookable from 01298 22841 or via www.oldhallhotelbuxton.co.uk. For further information about salsa classes (running every Tuesday at another key Fringe venue, The Old Clubhouse next to the Opera House), contact Sensational Salsa on 07811 100191 or email sensationalsalsa@yahoo.co.uk.

It's great to see dance carrying on all through the year in Buxton but we are often a bit frustrated that our Dance section in July's Fringe programme is so small. One of the issues is that contemporary dance sometimes struggles to find an audience though we've found that if you can get people through the door, they just love it. A few years ago one dance company decided to hold workshops with a local school. They then used the school dancers as a curtain raiser to their own show, thus securing a decent audience of mums and dads and then the students themselves as well as general Fringe goers. We have also had dancers taking to the open skies, whether it is the Belly Dance Flames on Fringe Sunday or the Chapel-en-le-Frith Morris Men who traditionally light up the town with their Day of Dance.

Please spread the word if you know of anyone keen to enter with dance or physical theatre. Schools are particularly welcome with sensitive young dancers moving the audience to tears on some occasions! And we've also had some amazing dancers from abroad in the past including the award-winning Makoto Inoue from Japan. Make no mistake, good things come in small packages and Dance is usually a sparkling jewel in the Fringe's crown.