Speed of Light

So what about the rest of this mad month? As a one man epitome of August, I have been  running around. 

Nothing new for me, so given the opportunity to turn my frantic occupation into performance art, how to resist? The NVA have upped the game as part of this year’s EIF programme, and taken root in Edinburgh’s most impressive venue. After dusk the iconic Arthur’s Seat lights up to the Speed of Light, where individual runners illuminate the landscape into choreographed shapes and sequences with glowing body suits. The audience drive forward through a dark Hollyrood Park, with light and sound emerging in stages on their route to the summit

The beauty is, that no one is a trained performer. All the runners are volunteers, so half excited by the idea of re-enacting scenes from Tron, half intrigued to see if my alabaster legs could be seen from afar, I signed up. I ran on the opening weekend and I was so enamored by the lunacy of it all, I am running again on Sunday. It is a show that ticks boxes for me. As a restless individual, I am a blight on conventional theaters. Unable to keep still in my seat and bursting with a running commentary, Arthur’s Seat was the perfect venue, where you can work up a sweat and whistle while you work, so to speak. I did wonder if there was not another show amongst the lot this month that had a full light-suit Mexican Wave. There’s a festival first for sure.

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