THE EYE ON DANCE

I know, I know, it's only June, but booking for the Edinburgh Festival has already been open for six weeks and failure to plan ahead could leave you scrambling for tickets and fighting for rooms out on the Crammond Foreshore instead of a nice little place in the New Town.

Anyone currently spending their evenings queuing for returns outside the London Coliseum to see L'Allegro, Il Penseroso ed Il Moderato will have learned by now that Mark Morris is a hot ticket. Morris's company is an Edinburgh regular and this year it joins forces with the Royal Opera in a production of Jean-Philippe Rameau's Platee, an 18th-century comedy of gods and wood nymphs ideally suited to Morris's pastoral whimsy.

Twyla Tharp's new company, rather curiously called Tharp! (as in Oliver!), concludes a European tour of three new works: Sweet Fields which uses Shaker hymns, 66 featuring kitsch Fifties sounds, and Heroes, danced to Philip Glass's latest work, inspired by the Bowie/Eno album of the same name.

Jiri Kylian's ensemble, Nederlands Dans Theater III, was created to make use of the talents of older dancers. If that sounds like an evening of gentle stretches and basket-weaving, think again. The group displays an impressive mix of mature drama and resilient technique all admirably displayed in five Kylian works.

San Francisco Ballet's first British visit for 17 years offers two eclectic triple bills. The first programme includes Balanchine's Stravinsky Violin Concerto and Symphony in C. This will be British audiences' third sighting of this glittering ensemble ballet this summer and an opportunity to compare San Francisco's handling of the work with the Royal Ballet's and the Kirov's. Other works on offer include David Bintley's The Dance House and Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes by Mark Morris. That man is everywhere.

Platee 11-14 Aug, Festival Theatre; Tharp! 11-13 Aug, Playhouse; NDT3 28-30 Aug, Playhouse; San Francisco Ballet 19-24 Aug, Playhouse. Bookings for all performances 0131-473 2000