On Saturday 26th, the Catstrand and many young people made the journey to Edinburgh, to go to the Edinburgh Fringe festival, a total of 8 people, including Cat, (CatStrand Young Creatives Project Lead) plus 8 young people from DG arts fest, creative spaces and Dumfries Theatre Royal.
Journey
We got picked up by GCT (Galloway Community Transport) at 7:30 in the morning. This bus journey took us 2 and a half hours. Whilst on this long but fun bus journey, we saw two large, neat horses standing in the middle of the road, a police van stood blocking the horses from getting any further. Half way through our journey we picked up Gracefield Art Centre's DG's Art Fest, leading to over 10 people being on the bus, this meant there was not a seat on the bus to spare. Even though this journey was long I think it was a fun one, it was a great lead up to the tiresome but enjoyable running around for shows.
Shows
We got to see three, nearly four, different shows, these included: Will Pickvance: First Piano on the Moon, 360 Allstars and Dom Chamber: A Boy and his Deck.
In Will Pickvance: First Piano on the moon a boy's dreams soon turns into a nightmare when he soon realises he needs to put in effort and practice to be able to perform and make a song. When walking around a old creepy haunted house, Will spots Mozart's old piano, after a while of thinking about how Mozart would of played the exact keys that Will was about to play, Will starts to imagine Mozart listening to Will's music and telling Will how to make a song, this leads Will to make an evolved version of happy birthday, eventually using it in the competition and winning the competition.
360 Allstars was an urban circus show that includes many different segments to show unique talents of world champion performance artists such as a drummer and a beat boxer, that performs throughout a majority of the show, 2 breakdances, a bmx rider, a basketball trick artist and an ariel artist. These talented people would show their talents in a fun way.
Dom Chambers: A Boy and His Deck, as the rudely suggestive title shows, this show is a rude comedy that include card magic. It is about a story of a boy trying to impress a internet famous magician, so he can get a special deck of cards. Throughout the show, Dom Chambers makes rude jokes with magic and tries to get participants from the crowd to come up on stage and do magic with them.
Opportunities
Catstrands idea for going to Edinburgh Fringe is a smart one, as it lets all of the kids going on the trip to be able to learn about all different genres of stage shows. it also allows the less privileged to be able to go to the fringe for free and get the experince of seeing some of the fringe's shows, whilst it would have cost hundreds of pounds just to travel to Edinburgh, let alone seeing the shows. It also allows for the young creatives to be seen and lets more young people to join and most importantly have fun.
Future events
I believe that the Catstrand should keep doing the Edinburgh Fringe and even do more like this type of trip. The Catstrand Young Creatives also do 2 annual drama pieces, one is a christmas panto, and another is a play for the Scottish Community Drama Association as part of the one act festival. n conclusion I believe it was a brilliant idea for the Catstrand Young Creatives to do this both for young people in Dumfries and Galloway and for Young Creatives.