SPIN CYCLES Comes to Edinburgh in August

Performed entirely on and with a spinning bike, Spin Cycles explores the processing and suppression of grief through the strange cult-like world of spin classes. Taking the theatricality of the Britney headsets and over-extroverted instructors, and combining it with the deep inner feelings of grief, Jamie-Lee Money’s Edinburgh debut looks at how we cope when we’ve been knocked sideways. Deeply rooted in personal experience and many tears in The Barbican foyer, Spin Cycles is a one-person show about spinning, grief and everything in between. Time to sweat out the sadness.  

Spin Cycles gives a cathartic look into why we search for something deeper when the inconceivable happens to us. After an earth-shattering year, a journalist returning from sabbatical is asked to review a spin class. Can she spin herself out of a slump as the thumping dance music opens up and envelops her, and refuses to let her ignore everything she has been supressing? Crossing the line between spin class and theatre, the show explores what it is about cult exercise studios that gives us a feeling of purpose and the sense that everything that was once upside down can be turned the right way up. 

Jamie-Lee Money said, “I had a bizarre and cathartic experience at a spin class after my Pa died and my mum got cancer and I thought, well this is a play. Everyone grieves, whether it is after death or anticipatory, so I hope audiences come away feeling a little bit seen and a little bit closer to however we heal after death.” 

Jamie-Lee Money is a South African Actor and Writer based in London. Jamie-Lee has worked on various film and television projects including Escape Room, Troy Fall of a City and most recently Breathing In. In 2016 she was one of the founding members of ‘Avant Guava’ where the trio, revived, workshopped and toured In Whorefish Bloomers: The Waitresses Lament a feminist cabaret which sold out at the Cape Town Fringe Festival and was nominated for Best of Fringe. After being in between age brackets and a few life events worth writing down, she created Spin Cycles.  

Director Larica Schnell is a South African actress, director and producer based in New York City. Her career started on stage in Cape Town, South Africa, before she moved to the USA to further her training. In 2018 she received an MFA in acting, with an emphasis on Shakespeare and classical theatre. Currently she is a member of Wolflight Studios, a film production company founded in 2020, which is producing a few notable feature films in 2022/23.  

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