IN bygone epochs of Edinburgh Festival Fringe, dance performances could be dubious. Hemmed by cramped converted spaces and rapid turnarounds, it was vexatious to have to jump out of our improvised hutches into full physical articulation. Audiences could witness dancers’ discomfort in the glaze of an eye, a botched balance, a fumbled bit of partnering and so on. There was a sense of “getting away with it.”

The game changed when Dance Base’s premises opened on The Grassmarket. The complex is purpose-built to function year-round as Scotland’s national centre for dance. In this spacious airy building, Fringe shows are lately given by performers who will have shaken a leg beforehand in designated studio space. Whatever ensues will stem from the concentration and engagement of properly fostered agility.

There’s further upgrade in the sense of informed choices. Dance Base’s artistic director Tony Mills, himself a dancer/choreographer of note, is the selector of this year’s offering. In this he follows Morag Deyes OBE, founder of the premises (built by Malcolm Fraser Architects, for its year 2000 inauguration) and devisor of procedures that inform Fringe participation of visiting troupes from as far away as Australia, Korea and Taiwan, cheek by jowl with accomplished locals.

Cutting a dash and ebullient with gesture, Tony Mills manifests welcome in the video-loop permanently installed in Dance Base’s neon-festooned street entrance vennel. His affable ringmaster persona wraps around determinedly profound thinking. 

Mindful of what it might be like to be tasked to junket off to south-east Asia and be obliged to select visiting troupes, I ask how he approaches this, and he explains his principles. His Fringe programme is not a “destination.” He has no commissioning budget. He clarifies that the opportunity to perform needs to be backed by cultural remit and resources. 

[[{"fid":"67883","view_mode":"inlineleft","fields":{"format":"inlineleft","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Occupational Hazard by ACCA Dance Theatre - Photo: Solomon Charles-Kelly","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"inlineleft","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Occupational Hazard by ACCA Dance Theatre - Photo: Solomon Charles-Kelly","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"alt":"Occupational Hazard by ACCA Dance Theatre - Photo: Solomon Charles-Kelly","class":"media-element file-inlineleft","data-delta":"1"}}]]The clusters of gifted performing artists he encounters (and encourages) thereafter self-nominate, to some degree. They need to apply organisational skills. They need to be perceived at home as warranting an Edinburgh platform. 

Tony is honest about the nature of his curating: it’s not rabidly subjective. Meanwhile, he is impressed and touched by the importance accorded to a Dance Base outing, amid cultural players far afield. 

Logistically speaking the widely known Assembly franchise — established by William Burdett-Coutts OBE in the 1980s and going from strength to strength — has now extended to administrate Dance Base’s 30+show Fringe season. Is this annexing? I cajole Tony by trying to guess (from brochure images and blurb) which acts (if any) are Assembly plants. My facetious hazard (ACCA Dance Theatre) proves completely wrong, and I desist. 

Mr Mills, it transpires, is fully at the helm curatorially, and Dance Base itself will take care of the running of its Fringe ‘24 class and workshop series. However, Assembly’s promotional clout points to fiscal stability, as does British Council support for the reserve of one of Dance base’s studios as a producer hangout/hub. Hence a sigh of relief is wafted over the notion of Dance base’s immediate future and its year-round creative and community activities.

Needs must. 

Ostensibly, Scotland might be a land of practicality: geographical delights, warm welcome and a pragmatic acceptance of cash influx comprise an ongoing formula. Edinburgh Festival Fringe adds its lanyard tonnage and sub-let jackpot to the brew. Franchises pop up and provide venues, hacking them up out of planks or draping hitherto pleasant halls into generic black boxes. 

Over the years, bright beacons go dark without warning and yesterday’s mega-venue might be tomorrow’s branch of Wetherspoons. If you’ve only just noticed such shenanigans, you haven’t been keeping up. 

Questionably, the biggest subsidy for the extravaganza probably comes from Fringe performers’ accepting modest fees en masse, or fully taking risks against subsequent advances. Industry promoters might, we’re told, find one’s needle in the cultural haystack and it’s known that two artistes at least (ever?) have gone on to conquer Netflix. But who will be fully nourished by seeing a show that just wants to get on and go somewhere else?

[[{"fid":"67884","view_mode":"inlineright","fields":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Ready by Matthew Hawkins - Photo: Courtesy of Dancebase","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false},"link_text":null,"type":"media","field_deltas":{"2":{"format":"inlineright","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Ready by Matthew Hawkins - Photo: Courtesy of Dancebase","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":false}},"attributes":{"alt":"Ready by Matthew Hawkins - Photo: Courtesy of Dancebase","class":"media-element file-inlineright","data-delta":"2"}}]]Enter the audience. I banter about the bit of Dance Base brochure copy that vaunts “hip hop but not as you know it” because I actually (ahem) don’t “know it” at all. In so doing I trigger an area of Tony’s expertise. He explains how he has selected a particular artist (Miller Nobili) who has insightfully sculpted and edited the purely entertaining/competitive hip hop form around viewers’ needs for additional lucidity in a theatrical context. Go audience! Prevailing punter-sensibility retains its influence here.

With a steadying hand Tony Mills cleaves to notions of ritualised performance. He sees the act of making and witnessing spellbinding dance movements as mysteriously historic in the time being. I’m with him on this and I will be dancing my solo READY in Dance Base’s plank-less and non-draped secret garden, to open his curated season.