A CROSSGATES dance teacher wowed the crowds at this summer’s Edinburgh Festival by producing a spectacular show to mark a landmark year for the Playhouse Theatre.

Louise Ferrier (25) was chosen to be an assistant choreographer with the Edinburgh Playhouse Stage Experience, a two-week project that allows youngsters to take part in a professional production on the famous stage.

To celebrate the Playhouse’s 85th year, she helped produce a combination show celebrating the best of smash hit musicals, singers and bands, comedians and film shows that have graced the stage throughout its history.

Louise, who runs the Centre Stage Dance Academy in Crossgates, which also has classes in Kelty and Rosyth, was selected to be part of the production team after a successful interview and designed elements of the show for the 115-strong cast to perform - including a section of Riverdance.

They produced three shows which took place last month and Louise said, “It was a major shock when I got the phone call asking me to be part of it, and I think the words of the call were ‘are you sure you want me?’ “It was so surreal because I danced on the Playhouse stage when I was nine, so to choreograph different styles created by me and see them in the show was a massive buzz.” Louise, who lives in Dunfermline, continued, “We only had two weeks to prepare and when we put the show together, the run-time was missing three minutes.

“I asked if we could have a bit of Riverdance and told them it was the only thing we could put in! We took 16 dancers and apart from one who’d done a little bit, none of them had done any Irish dancing before so they did really well. The audience were mad for it!

“I’ve been dancing since I was two so I was always going to go into dance teaching, it was my dream. My school’s been running in Crossgates for two years, but it was still quite a learning curve for me. To go from the biggest number we have of 60 to double that was a bit crazy, but I learned a lot and there are ideas that I can take from it to my school.” If you are interested in getting involved with Centre Stage Dance Academy, visit their website at www.centrestageda.co.uk Louise is pictured with cousin and Commonwealth Games judo silver medallist Stephanie Inglis and kids from the dance school.