LA Dancer Reflects

on Performing at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival

By Maggie Donahue ’26

Before I talk about Edinburgh, Scotland, let’s start in the fall of 2022, my ninth-grade year. Once I joined the dance program at Lawrence Academy and began working with Brian Feigenbaum, I learned to express myself in different ways and in different movements. I learned my style as those around me found theirs.

On the trip to the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, we worked hard to create a piece that emphasized our individual personalities and how we could easily intertwine them through our motions. Together we appreciate each other’s individuality and encourage each other to become more in touch with ourselves and the pieces we create. The piece we created was called “Sense” and was inspired by how we, the dancers, interpret our senses.

At the Fringe Festival, I saw the most incredible performances — ones with a deep meaning and others that were simply made for you to laugh. We saw people balancing two others on their shoulders, which I still can’t comprehend. Each performance was memorable in its own way; sometimes, we would watch an impactful piece. For example, there was a performance we saw describing through dance the stages and difficulties of being in a relationship. This doesn’t sound too exciting, but even though there were no words, each movement expressed a line of a story and a feeling, and that’s what made it special. That’s what inspired me to dance.

Walking around together in the streets of Edinburgh, the performances, rehearsals, and shows — I won’t forget any of it. That being said, what made this trip was the people. I’m so glad that each one of us was there, because I can’t imagine that trip with anyone other than Brian Feigenbaum P’09, ’12, Dina Mordeno P’18, ’20, Veronica Fortune ’26, Sally Hu ’25, Bella Levin ’25, Morgan Soule ’25, and Emma Zuo ’25. They made this trip all the more memorable and fun. Never in my life would I have imagined going to Scotland, performing at the Fringe Festival, and spending every day with each of these amazing people, but I did, and I am so grateful for every moment of it.