AROUND TOWN list.co.uk/aroundtown
HITLIST THE BEST FESTS, TALKS & EVENTS
✽ Who Do You Think You Are? Live Been inspired by the BBC TV show to learn
more about your family history? Get started with a wealth of expert advice. See preview, page 44. SECC, Glasgow, Fri 29–Sun 31 Aug.
✽ Glasgow Skeptics The folks from Glasgow Skeptics get their teeth into
the meaty independence debate. John Curtice, Professor of Politics at the University of Strathclyde, has a look at the polls and sparks off the debate just ten days before the referendum takes place. The Admiral, Glasgow, Mon 8 Sep.
✽ Miss.Fit Sisters Vintage Circus Run away with the vintage circus (pictured,
above) as Miss.Fit present a retro party – dress in your 1940s finest – with live circus acts, aerial performance, swing dance lessons, Miss Dixiebell’s hair and make-up salon and live music from the Bevvy Sisters. Out of the Blue Drill Hall, Edinburgh, Sat 23 Aug.
✽ Forth Bridges Festival
Celebrate the Forth Road Bridge’s half century with ten days of family-friendly events to mark the occasion, including tower-top trips that take you 156 metres above the Firth of Forth, a flotilla, live music, fireworks, a torchlight procession and more. See preview page 42. Various venues around the Firth of Forth, Tue 4–Sat 13 Sep.
✽ Color Me Rad Get over the ennui of a
regular 5K with a “colour run” – the CMR team blast participants with shedloads of neon paint as they run. Think of it as a rave, just with more jogging. See preview, page 43. Howden Park Centre, Livingston, Sat 23 Aug.
EDINBURGH MELA Multinational dance festival enters its 20th year
T he second day of last year’s Edinburgh Mela may have been called off due to unprecedented high winds, but what the thousands who came to Leith Links saw in the event’s earlier stages was a summation of everything its artistic director Chris Purnell has in mind for it. A long-established fixture on the calendar for Edinburgh’s North Asian communities, the Mela has grown into a compelling community event for all nations and creeds, and now in its 20th year, it’s becoming an international dance festival whose reputation is spreading beyond the boundaries of the city.
‘Our ambition for the event’s moving on apace,’ says Purnell, ‘which is evidenced by the programme we’ve produced this year. The King of Ghosts commission is a signature event for us this year, and a major step up in terms of the quality of the work we want
40 THE LIST 21 Aug–18 Sep 2014
to produce and the reach we want to have across Scotland. We see ourselves as an arts organisation these days.’ The King of Ghosts is a major new turning point for the Mela, a collaboration between sarod player Soumik Datta and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, which will tour Scotland after its Friday appearance here, the Mela’s first production beyond Leith. Yet the programme extends far and wide across genres and nations, featuring UK bhangra icon Apache Indian, ex-Bhundu Boy Rise Kagona, reggae singer Cornel Campbell and his band the Soothsayers, and Italian DJ Gaudi among many others, as well as food from around the world and more family-oriented activities on the Saturday and Sunday. (David Pollock)
Leith Links, Edinburgh, Fri 29–Sun 31 Aug.