It's a Jumble Out There: Found Wins a Fringe First

The success of Found as a Fringe First is understandable: not only is it a charming and thoughtfully conceived work, it features a live band, which always adds an intimacy and warmth. That Found was developed in conjunction with the musicians is clearly evident in the performance. Luke Sutherland and Christine Devaney begun to improvise together, and from this seed grew the expanded company and show.

The Fringe Firsts are one of the most hotly contested awards of the Fringe. Only new work is eligible, and since it has the support of the Scotsman, it represents a degree of establishment respectability. Since the other winners include three works from the Traverse, it has a seal of quality and a guarantee of a degree of polish.

Found is another example of the multi-disciplinary approach that is gaining popularity. Luke Sutherland acts not only as musician and composer but as a writing mentor - he is known for his excellent novel Venus as a Boy and its subsequent dramatisation with Tam Dean Burn. The video from Jonathan Charles operates as a setting but also enhances the atmospheres: the strong lighting design is evocative and integral to the mood.

Despite Curious Seed being firmly rooted in contemporary - the dancers talk, the music owes more to Godspeed You Black Emperor than Prokofiev - this apparently radical development process connects Found back to the balletic tradition. The Ballet Russes, Diaghelev's early twentieth century pioneers, collaborated with Picasso and Dali, with costumes from haute couture legend Coco Chanel. Arch-deconstructionist Balanchine teamed up with Brecht, and Merce Cunningham had a lifelong partnership with avant-garde composer John Cage.

There is sometimes a strict divide between balletomanes and lovers of contemporary performance, but the history of dance over the last hundred years has been marked by a restless experimentation, as choreographers seek like minds and sympathy, and bring their skills to other art forms.

Lailo Diallo has assisted on operas. Chickenshed use dance as a form of community outreach. At Dance Base, Found is not alone in its inventive cross-platforming. The divine Iona Kewney invited Joe Quimby to carry her movement on waves of feedback and guitar loops; Lindsay John has called Simplicity an installation, due to the important contribution of Alex Rig's soundscape and Jane McInally's moving image; Dialogue features a shaven-headed lap-top jockey.

The gap between ballet and contemporary is in constant flux: that the Scottish Ballet has led a degree at the RSAMD in Glasgow for Contemporary Ballet places the trend for reconcillation into the mainstream. And the Fringe First is both a personal and deserved triumph for Curious Seed and an affirmation of dance's prevailing trends.