Dance Marathon by Bluemouth Inc was a Unifying, Competitive, Community Trance! This powerful participatory event was a definite highlight of my Edinburgh Fringe experience. The night was young and I queud up with the young, the old, the dancers and the non-dancers, not knowing what to expect. We were each given a numbered bib and registration form. I feel like I am entering a dance competition. Wait, I am. We gather together and walk from the conventional theatre to the streets, a herd of numbered movers. Into a darker building with nightclub lights and big painted footprints on the floor. I can hear a few people breath ‘oh no’ and laugh as they realise our bib numbers match the footsteps and we will be separated from our loved ones! And further more giggles/ concerns when the footprints are closely facing another pair. Inevitable partnering. Actually I quite like that, especially if you’ve come alone and you want to dance – what an easy way to meet people. Perhaps more clubs should try it. 
After hearing instructions about what we must do and what we musn’t do (don’t stop moving!) the music starts. We are big participatory crowd in a trance-like condition, buzzing, moving in unpredictable and competitive capacities. We are a community of people, dancers, some of us came prepared with jazz shoes and the like, most just wore flats and some had to change. Finding our footsteps, partnered up with strangers and circling a task master (she was scary) like in a circus ring. It was pretty exhausting and I didn’t have much time to talk to my partner, apart from establishing his name was Chris. In the breaks there was a rush to get to the loos, have a drink, and spray some deodorant. I really liked being offered deodorant by a man with roller skates next to a table of assorted essentials such as hair clips. It felt like a beauty pageant or ballet exam but far more eccentric and fun. Actually it was necessary as I was beginning to sweat and we were still in the first hour.
As the night progressed, more people got eliminated and the concept of this meant that you were literally ‘on your toes’ as the competition heated up. I noticed that everyone was trying really hard to stay in the competition, no-one left or sat at the side – everyone was in it to win it and the floor reverberated with regular feet tapping at all points (never stop moving! Or you’re Out!). It was intriguing how much the crowd followed each other, so eager to be ‘in’ the crowd and therefore avoiding being eliminated. Dance moves seemed to sweep across the room contagiously without knowing who had started them but desperately copying and keeping up! I made it to the last half hour which sounds good but actually most people were still in it at this point. Then came the threat of a mass elimination and you should have seen the ferocity at which we grabbed our partners and moved. We had to circle and avoid getting trapped behind a ‘finishing line’ which would randomly appear by the man in roller skates. Gotcha. Chris and I and 30 plus other couples were out. Out of breath and disappointed, we admitted defeat and sided off – leaving 10 final couples to battle it out in the middle of the floor. At this point a ‘hula’ dance was learnt, more couples eliminated leading to a finale blindfolded go-cart race, making that final couple really earn their position. They did it! Two women, one in her twenties, one about mid-fifties up their on the podium, all smiles. Hooray!
The crowd left pretty quickly afterwards, too tired to hang about chatting and certainly to go on to anywhere else! Having had what felt like a real sharing experience, it was surreal to be walking back alone to my hostel in the dark, having had an experience that felt wildly like a night out – I was tempted to take my shoes off and carry them in my arms – letting my feet ease out on the wet cobbled pavement but I resisted this. I found myself re-affirming what had just happened, I have been dancing for 3 and half hours with a stranger, in a room full of other strangers/ dancers. I have. Photos taken by me at Dance Marathon in Edinburgh 2011, Dance Marathon leaflet/ publicity material by Bluemouth Inc.
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