Tag: Pomegranates Festival

Pomegranates Festival programme announced

FULL PROGRAMME ANNOUNCED – 25-30 April 2025

The Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland is delighted to announce full details of its fourth Pomegranates Festival which will run from Friday 25 to Wednesday 30 April 2025 at various venues across Edinburgh. 

The Pomegranates Festival in partnership with TRACS (Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland) and Moray House School of Education and Sport, at the University of Edinburgh celebrates Scottish traditional dance alongside world traditional dance practised by New Scots and cultural migrant communities across Scotland.

It is supported by Creative Scotland and includes exhibitions, ceilidhs, workshops, walking tours, and talks about traditional dance from Scotland and around the world. Every year the Pomegranates Festival explores the intrinsic links of traditional dance with live music, film, fashion, poetry, art and heritage craft. 

This year’s festival theme is masks invitingfestival-goers to experience the power of masks used in different traditions; and reflect on the significance, beauty and mystery of masks and mask-making in traditional dance from antiquity to modern days. 

The festival opens on Friday 25 April with a packed programme of short films of traditional dance followed by a Q&A with featured creatives, including the award-winning filmmakers Marlene Millar and Mare Tralla. Marlene’s films include To Begin the Dance Once More(2023) which tells the story of displacement and water crisis reimagined through the mythological world by three climate refugees from Scotland and Egypt; and Bhairava (2018) filmed on location in India which evokes Shiva, the Lord of Dance as both the destroyer of evil driving out terrible deeds, and the guardian of time.

Also screening is Mare Tralla’s new screen dance The Bright Fabric of Life (2024) which tenderly addresses the life-altering injuries sustained by women in labour, told using traditional African dance and music; Home (2023, Dir. Kes Tagney) which explores the deep connection people have for the place they call home featuring Scottish Step dancer Sophie Stephenson;Crowned by Flame (2024, Dir. Lyuxian Yu) about the Chinese Yi ethnic community’s Cigarette Box dance; Armea (2024. Dir. Letila Mitchell)which chronicles the homecoming of the dancers and musicians of the Pacific island of Rotuma; On Canada Day(2024, Dir. Gurdeep Pandher) reflecting on Canada’s past through a dance fusion of Punjabi and Celtic traditions; and Autocorrect (2022, Dir. Jonzi D) inspired by the COVID-19 face masks, set to the spoken word of Saul Williams and commissioned by Sadler’s Wells.

Hip-hop dance theatre artist, choreographer and dancer Jonzi D returns to the festival as this year’s choreographer-in-residence and will be working with traditional dance artists based in Scotland to create this year’s masked festival finale Hidden Faces which will premiere on the International Day of Dance (29 April 2025).

Other highlights include:

●     The premiere sharing of not for glory – a skirling new dance-theatre performance of bodies and bagpipes, and rebellious unravelling of traditional dance and music by Jack Anderson, Charlotte Mclean and in collaboration with musician Malin Lewis.

●     The premiere sharing of Sequins – a new hip hop dance theatre solo show by Kalubi Mukangela-Jacoby set to the Pomegranates Festival spoken word commission of Sequins of Poems to Dance To by Ian McMillan.

●     An evening of poetry, dance and discussion focusing on Intangible Cultural Heritage and its relationship with Scottish traditional dance.

●     A new exhibition of masks (3 Apr-12 May) by Pomegranates Festival artist-in-residence Lorraine Pritchard – anEdinburgh-based mask maker, costume-designer and fashion model, plus the only Scottish artist performing at the Venice Carnival 2025. Lorraine’s first solo exhibition, especially curated for the festival, zooms on the relationship between the heritage craft of mask-making and traditional dance and features masks, photographs, films and books, including Lorraine’s new Venetian Carnival masks which ahead of the exhibition will be premiered and modelled by the artist at this year’s Carnevale in Venice 21 February – 4 March. 

●     A day of walking tours led by dance historians Alena Shmakova and Agnes Ness about the role of women in traditional dance past and present, with focus on the role of Mary, Queen of Scots.

●     A dance theatre matinee which is the culmination of Pomegranates dance artists-in-residence at Edinburgh’s Abbeyhill and Royal Mile Primary Schools. Over 20 resident dancers – all postgraduate students in Dance Science and Education at the University of Edinburgh will perform alongside the Scot Polish musician-in-residence Aga Idczak. The choreography of the Scot Cypriot artist Sotirios Panagoulias and the costume design by the New York born Scot Polish designer Gerry Gapinski are co-created with over fifty pupils aged 10-11 years. The matinee is the outcome of an unique co-devising method of Socratic Circles, weaving in the children’s ideas, drawings and poems about the wee objects selected by each pupil to represent their diverse heritage.

In the lead up to the start of the festival there will also be a podcast released on 8 March to celebrate International Women’s Day, previewing the story of Mary, Queen of Scots in Edinburgh and her passion for dance, with New Scot Alena Shmakova.

Plus, there will be a Ceilidh Plus mixing Scottish, Bulgarian and Irish traditional dancing on 21 March to celebrate 10 years of the Bulgarian traditional dance school in Edinburgh and St Patrick’s Day on 17 March.

This popular event is part of the festival’s year-round programme of Ceilidh Plus evenings held at the Kings Hall that combine Scottish dancing with traditional dances from the migrant and diaspora communities in Scotland.

During the festival the Ceilidh Plus event will showcase a mix of Scottish, Polish and Hungarian dance styles. 

All festival events are presented on a free or affordable ‘pay what you can‘ basis.

Wendy Timmons and Iliyana Nedkova, Festival Co-curators said: “In 2025 when we celebrate Edinburgh’s 900 years journey from the 12th Century City of David to the 21st City of Diversity, we are very proud to present the fourth edition of Pomegranates – Edinburgh’s festival of diversity in traditional dance, the festival that has already made it to the #ListHot100 as one of the 100 most influential cultural events of the year.

“Expect a flair of mystery as this year our festival artists will don their dance masks and take on whole new personalities honouring their traditions and our global living heritage.”

John Ravenscroft, Head of the Centre for Research in Education, Inclusion and Diversity (CREID) at Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh said: “I am very pleased to continue to forge our strategic academic partnership with the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland which dates back to 2018. Great to see the return of the Pomegranates Festival choreographer-in-residence Jonzi D who delivered the seminal Decolonising the Curriculum keynote lecture at Moray House School of Education and Sport as part of last year’s festival.

“I am also excited about the opening matinee which is part of the wider campaign advocating for the diverse forms of world traditional dance becoming a primary ingredient of our children’s primary education.

“This campaign is run by the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland in conjunction with our Centre and our School while the matinee is funded by the University of Edinburgh through the Edinburgh Local Community Fund.” 

MC, Jonzi D, hip hop dance theatre artist and choreographer-in-residence at this year’s Festival, said: “Following my Pomegranates festival debut last year, I am really honoured to be invited back as this year’s choreographer-in-residence, plus I am particularly partial to the new festival theme of masks. 

“Traditional dance is important, including masked dance, because it represents living heritage while celebrating difference. I think we’ve reached a period in society where our differences are being used against us; our differences are being used to keep us separated; our differences are being used as judgmental tools. Manufactured polarisation. But our infinite differences define our identities, and still we have more in common than we have apart. Pomegranates festival celebrates our differences.”

Vanessa Boyd, Interim Head of Dance at Creative Scotland says: “Pomegranates Festival continues to be an important platform celebrating Scotland’s rich traditional dance heritage alongside the diverse influences that shape our communities today.

“This year’s focus on masks highlights a powerful symbol that has been used in dance for centuries, transforming performers and deepening storytelling across cultures.

“Audiences can look forward to experiencing new work and exploring the rich and diverse traditional dance forms that the Pomegranates Festival has to offer across a packed programme of live performance, screen, workshops and community gatherings.”  

The Pomegranates Festival (25 – 30 Apr) is the annual platform for the diverse 250+ individual and organisational members of the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland to teach, learn and perform in new dance theatre and screen dance shows, as well as new productions and residencies.

This is the fourth edition of Scotland’s annual festival of international traditional dance, initiated, curated and produced by the Traditional DanceForum of Scotland.

It is presented in partnership with TRACS (Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland), Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Central Library, Dance Base and the Scottish Storytelling Centre.

In 2025 the Pomegranates Festival is funded by Creative Scotland Multi-Year Funding through TRACS (Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland); the City of Edinburgh Council and University of Edinburgh through the Edinburgh Local Community Fund. 

For tickets and more information visit https://www.tdfs.org/pomegranates/

Edinburgh pupils premiere new ‘Junk Food’ dance

P6 pupils from the Royal Mile and Abbeyhill Primary Schools and student dancers from Moray House School of Education and Sport came together yesterday to perform Junk Food, written and created for this year’s Pomegranates Festival.

Over the course of the spring term, pupils at both schools took part in several workshops to discuss themes such as why people dance, what dance looks like, and chose a topic of their choice to create a dance piece that was relevant to them.

The pupils chose to discuss ‘Junk Food’ and used this theme to create a short dance piece accompanied by new electronic music by Gourab Dey, with the help of students at the University. The pupils worked on themes like ‘hangry’ and what this looked like as a dance movement, and after several rehearsals they created today’s final dance piece.

Wendy Timmons, Co-Producer of Pomegranates Festival and Senior Lecturer in Dance at Moray House School of Education and Sport said: “Many children that we work with in schools experience dance as part of physical education, and therefore the aesthetic experience of being in a theatre and being on stage is completely new.

“What this project aimed to do was to create a dance piece using their ideas so they would feel more connected with the process. Today’s performance illustrates the quality of work that this process can create, and this came across in the piece.”

The Pomegranates Festival runs until tomorrow (Tuesday 30 April) and is Scotland’s annual festival of international traditional dance.

Initiated and curated by Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland it is presented and produced in partnership with Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland, Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh City Libraries, Dance Base and the Scottish Storytelling Centre. 

The Festival finishes with a finale performance on International Dance Day 29 April which includes a new piece of dance created by MC, hip-hop dancer and choreographer-in-residence Jonzi D and performed by 20 Edinburgh-based traditional dancers.

The piece will be accompanied by newly-commissioned poetry by Perth-based poet Jim Mackintosh who will also be launching his new book of poetry We are Migrant at the event, and poems by BBC broadcaster Ian McMillan. 

Plus, there will be a screening of a new film by contemporary visual artist and human rights activist Mare Tralla who has been artist-in-residence at this year’s festival.

There will also be a live streamed keynote lecture by Jonzi D on ‘Decolonising the Expressive Arts Curriculum’ tomorrow – Tuesday 30 April at 10am at Paterson’s Land, Moray House School of Education and Sport, Holyrood Road, Edinburgh EH8 8AQ.

Pomegranates Festival Next Week

25th – 30th APRIL

SOWING THE SEEDS OF INTERNATIONAL TRADITIONAL DANCE

There’s just one week to go before the Pomegranates Festival of International Traditional Dance (25-30 April) kicks off at the Scottish Storytelling Centre and various venues across Edinburgh. 

Tickets for all events are going fast and are available on a Pay What You Can basis.

The Pomegranates Festival, supported by Creative Scotland’s Traditional Dance Target Fund, celebrates Scottish traditional dance and diverse traditional dance practised by cultural migrant communities across Scotland.

The idea for the name of the festival comes from the second line of the Beatles song ‘Something’ (1969) written by George Harrison. The word pomegranate was only used as a temporary filler by Harrison before he settled on the final lyrics.

For the festival this idea of pomegranates being a filler before settling on the final creation, came to stand for their process of workshopping, trying and teaching – all elements that remain hidden from the public eye, but culminate in unmissable creations.

This year, these unmissable creations include: 

A newly-devised showing of Elegies, (27 Apr, 7pm) which premiered during the Scottish International Storytelling Festival 2023.

This performance, which weaves together dance theatre, spoken word and live music, is a dance adaptation of the poetry book Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica (1948) by Hamish Henderson(1919-2002), a soldier-poet, singer-songwriter and scholar-folk revivalist of Scotland.

Set in a dancehall and a desert during the Second World War, the new production is centred around new ensemble choreography by George Adams which  embodies ceilidh, jive, swing and lindy hop, accompanied by Henderson’s poems read by spoken word artists Morag Anderson and Stephen Watt, and live music and vocals from multi-instrumentalist Cera Impala.

The Festival Finale on International Dance Day (29 April 7.30pm) which will include a new dance piece created by festival choreographer-in-residence Jonzi D and performed by 20 Edinburgh-based traditional dancers.

Jonzi D is a MC, dancer, spoken word artist and widely recognised for his influence on the development of the UK British hip hop dance and theatre scene.

The piece will be accompanied by newly-commissioned poetry by Perth-based poet Jim Mackintoshwho will also be launching his new book of poetry We are Migrant at the event, and poems by BBC broadcaster Ian McMillan read by Jonzi D. There will also be a screening of a new film by contemporary visual artist and human rights activist Mare Tralla who has been artist-in-residence at this year’s festival.

Plus, there are tours of Edinburgh’s Old and New Town’s dance history (27 April 11am & 2pm), looking at the city’s dance tales and the under-recognised female dance teachers of the past, with writer and storyteller Donald Smith and dance historian Alena Shmakova; a special Lindy Hop ceilidh session led by the festival musicians-in-residence Castle Rock Jazz Band (27 April 8.30pm); a talk by Ruediger Hess, President of Europeade who will give an overview of the history of Europeade (25 April, 11am) which is the largest festival of folk dance and music held in a different European country each year, whilst on an initial visit to Scotland to explore the possibility of various cities hosting the 61st edition in 2026; and a Family Day on Sunday 28 April 10am to 2pm featuring shows for and by wee ones and a family ceilidh called by Caroline Brockbank of CeilidhKids.

Jim Mackintosh, poet-in-residence at this year’s Pomegranates Festival said:

to share the creative space

of the Pomegranate

to be one with such an array of talent,

to learn and empower, to embrace the rhythm

of words and dance woven with laughter

and the energy of youth

to pin my imagination

to the floor which

holds us to the union of our purpose

is a precious gift:

the gift that is the Pomegranate Festival

Pomegranate Festival co-producers Wendy Timmons and Iliyana Nedkova said: “We are delighted that this year’s festival is packed with over 25 events representing the diversity and wealth of traditional dance at our shores, as well as the intrinsic connection of Scottish and world trad dance with live music, poetry, film, heritage crafts, fashion and storytelling.

“We are very proud that for the third year now Pomegranates is serving a cocktail of fascinating movement to audiences and participants from Scotland, as well as worldwide via our festival livestreams.

“So looking forward to sharing this long weekend featuring over 100 trad dance artists, musicians and creatives as they take over our stages, screens and spaces.

“Spring has sprung and so have the seedlings of the ruby seeds and sequins of traditional dance from all corners of the world – all practised in Scotland by first and second generation of cultural migrants – from the Scottish Gaelic singing and step dancing to Ukrainian folk dancing, from Lindy Hop to Hip Hop.”  

Vanessa Boyd, Interim Head of Dance at Creative Scotland commented: “The upcoming Pomegranates Festival in the capital promises a vibrant gathering of artists uniting to celebrate and present a diverse tapestry of Scottish traditional dance alongside traditional dance from migrant communities and various cultures.

“What makes this festival truly exceptional is the breadth of the programming provided by Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland which will enable many more people the opportunity to experience and engage with a strong mix of traditional dance from Scotland and around the world.”

The Pomegranates Festival will run from Thursday 25 April to Tuesday 30 April 2024 and is Scotland’s annual festival of international traditional dance.

Initiated and curated by Traditional DanceForum of Scotland it is presented and produced in partnership with Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland, Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh City Libraries, Dance Base and the Scottish Storytelling Centre. 

For tickets and more information visit https://linktr.ee/pomegranatesfest

Exhibition of Sustainable Tartan Fashion opens 23rd April

Vengefully Changed Allegiance by Alison Harm

Exhibition runs from  23rd  to 30th April 2024

Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh EH1 1SR

Vengefully Changed Allegiance is a solo exhibition of work by fashion designer Alison Harm, the founder of Edinburgh’s own Psychomoda clothing brand. Using industry scraps, vintage cloth and broken jewellery, Alison mixes different tartan patterns to create clothing items that challenge our opinions on tradition, and on what we should wear.

Curated specifically for the Pomegranates festival of international traditional dance (25-30 April), this exhibition of sustainable fashion also explores the living heritage of the tartan cloth still used by Highland dancers and for kilts.

By tradition, tartans are chosen according to a person’s clan however, Alison’s garments mix different tartan patterns together to create contemporary designs that question our need to safeguard our intangible cultural heritage, at the expense of innovation and fashion.

Fashion Designer Alison Harm said: “Fashion is cyclic, nothing is new. Just as today we might wear clothes of a bygone era to show our allegiance to a culture from the past, the Victorians did the same.

“A political Jacobite revivalist movement swept the UK in 1886, bringing a renewed interest in all things Scottish into the arts and fashion. Tartan cloth became a significant part of that movement. 

“Almost a hundred years later, the youth of the UK, against a background of political and cultural dissent, again chose tartan as part of their tribal uniform, with a naive style consisting of a home-made, make-do-and-mend ethos.

“An anti-capitalist statement by the wearer. The wheel has turned again and sustainability is now the focus of the fashion industry. People want to express their dislike of the fast fashion behemoth which is ruining our planet.

“I have returned to tartan cloth to express  this symbolism. By using industry scraps and remnants along with found objects, in the punk tradition, and irreverently mixing tartan patterns together to challenge the viewer’s perception of who can wear what, and to where – therefore suggesting they can step outside of societal expectations.”

Vengefully Changed Allegiance is part of Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland and TRACS programme of events showcasing Scotland’s traditional arts and cultural heritage. TRACS has been recently appointed as an advisor to UNESCO on Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in Scotland and this exhibition showcases ICH in practice through highlighting the sustainability in the fashion industry while exploring the role of tartan in Scottish trad dance.

Admission to the exhibition is free, and includes daily drop-in, on-demand artist and curator-led tours. 

Established in 2022, Pomegranates is Scotland’s springtime festival of Scottish and international traditional dance curated by the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland and produced in partnership with TRACS, Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh City Libraries, Dance Base and the Scottish Storytelling Centre.

The festival celebrates Scottish traditional dance and traditional dance practised by cultural migrant communities across Scotland.

It provides a platform to showcase new dance commissions, exhibitions and residencies accompanied by live music, poetry, and art; and invites audiences to participate in ceilidhs, workshops (both in person and live streamed), tours, and talks about traditional dance from Scotland and around the world.

For tickets and more information visit: 

https://linktr.ee/pomegranatesfest, https://www.tdfs.org/pomegranatesfest2024/

Dance Around the World Exhibition

 Exhibition runs from 3rd to 30th April 2024

Edinburgh Central Library, 7-9 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1EG

A new exhibition displaying over 100 items on loan from public and private collections of world traditional dance books and artefacts, opened today as part of this year’s Pomegranates Festival in Edinburgh.

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Portrait of dance artist Ella Moore wearing a Ukrainian headdress and scarf featured in the exhibition. Commissioned by the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland for the inaugural Pomegranates festival in April 2022 by floral artist Fiona Rose Gregory. Photo by Iliyana Nedkova

Dance Around the World will feature items from over 20 different countries including Scotland, Greece, Estonia, Poland, Bali and Japan. Highlights include a Ukrainian headdress commissioned by the festival in 2022 in tribute to the millions of displaced Ukrainians around the world (pictured above); an original Estonian dance dolly ‘rescued’ from a Finnish flea market and a full outfit worn at Scottish country dances since 1978 by a lifetime member of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society. 

This year’s festival commission is a Barbie doll clad in a tartan frock by festival’s fashion designer-in-residence Alison Harm of Edinburgh’s Psychomoda brand. (Alison Harm’s solo exhibition of sustainable tartan exploring the role of tartan in Scottish trad dance is at the Scottish Storytelling Centre 23-30 April.)

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Barbie in Highland Dance Dress – Commissioned by the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland for Pomegranates Festival 2024. Outfit by Alison Harm of Psychomoda.

Alongside the numerous books on display selected from five private collections, as well as the catalogue of the Edinburgh City Libraries, visitors will revel in rare artefacts, including a pair of exquisite lacquer Geta shoes and an Obi bow and sash worn as part of the traditional wrap-around costumes for the Bon Odori summer dance festivals in Japan, and at the inaugural Pomegranates festival in Scotland. 

Amongst the heirlooms in the exhibition is a silver brooch with a Viking ship motif which used to adorn the trad dance and song costume of the Estonian grandmother of the festival’s artist-in-residence Mare Tralla. 

Mare, who co-curated Dance Around the World is a Scottish Estonian artist and activist currently working and living in Edinburgh. Her professional art career started in Tallinn in the early 1990s, where she became one of the leading interdisciplinary artists of the younger generation, conducting a feminist revolution in the field of contemporary art in Estonia.

Mare combines a variety of media in her work, from video, photography and painting to performance and interactivity. She also often utilises traditional crafts like knitting and weaving in her practice, including through her long-term craft project Natty Peeps.

Artist-in-residence and co-curator Mare Tralla said: “I am so grateful for the opportunity to co-curate the Dance Around the World exhibition in collaboration with this year’s Pomegranates Festival and Edinburgh City Libraries and to offer hands-on craft workshops.

“I hope that any craft enthusiasts will join me to seek inspiration from the new exhibition to make our own costume jewellery and homeware while tracing the importance of tassels and pom-poms across the trad dance costumes from all corners of the world, including the sporran in the show”. 

Edinburgh-based dance artist and art historian who is one of the major contributors to the exhibition Agnes Ness said: “I was so excited to go through my own library, photo albums and memorabilia and select a range of books, postcards and medals for the Dance Around the World exhibition.

“A wee testimony of my lifelong passion for art history and dance which dates back to my childhood spent in competitive Highland dance in the 1950s, leading to my current adventures as a teacher in Dance History at Dance Base, Scotland’s National Centre for dance where I am a founding member of the 24 Carat Gold Dance Group for those aged 60 and above.” 

Iliyana Nedkova and Wendy Timmons, Pomegranates Festival Co-curators said: “Our collaboration with Edinburgh Libraries began in June 2023 when we brought live trad dance to the library, possibly for the first time, while celebrating the feisty women-tradition keepers and dance innovators as part of the 10th anniversary of the Harpies, Fechters and Quines Festival.

“We even recorded live in the George Washington Browne Room one of our Trad Dance Cast video podcast episodes with the legendary trad dance artist and costume designer Margaret Belford, 85.

“It was then when we pencilled and penned our love letter to the library – this very dance exhibition and all the related festival activities, including the craft workshops and walking tours.” 

Dance Around the World

3rd to 30th April 2024, Open Mon-Wed 10am-8pm, Thu-Sat 10am-5pm, Closed Sun
Central Library, 7-9 George IV Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1EG

This exhibition is part of the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland and TRACS’s programme of events showcasing Scotland’s traditional arts and cultural heritage alongside international collections.On display are over 100 items on loan from public and private collections of world traditional dance books and artefacts.

Co-curator Mare Tralla‘s festival residency follows in the footsteps of the artists-in-residence in the Pomegranates festivals 2022 and 2023: Claudia Nocentini (Italy / Scotland) and Gabriel Schmitz (Germany/Spain). Likewise, Mare will create a new commission in her media of choice in response to the festival activities – a new screen dance that will be premiered at the festival finale.

Admission to the exhibition is free. 

Craft Workshops

10th, 17th and 30th  April at 6pm
Central Library, (George Washington Browne Room) George IV Bridge, Edinburgh EH1 1EG
Led by artist-in-residence Mare Tralla, these hands-on craft workshops, inspired by the new exhibition include crafting your own costume jewellery and homeware while exploring the role of tassels and pom-poms across trad dance costumes. All materials such as natural fibres and up-cycled fabric will be provided. Suitable for anyone aged 18+. 

Admission Free  

Walking Tour 

27th April at 11am
Meet at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, 43-45 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1SR                                      Led by storyteller Donald Smith this is a relaxed festival walking tour exploring the dance traditions of Edinburgh’s Old Town, including their locations and social contexts. An opportunity to learn about the local folk traditions, the Scottish Court and ‘polite’ society. The tour will start from the Scottish Storytelling Centre with a preview of the festival exhibition Vengefully Changed Allegiance by Alison Harm of Psychomoda. The tour will end at Edinburgh’s Central Library with a preview of the festival exhibition Dance Around the World featuring trad dance books and artefacts from Edinburgh and beyond.

Admission Pay What You Can 

Pomegranates 

Established in 2022, Pomegranates is Scotland’s springtime festival of Scottish and international traditional danceproduced by the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland and TRACS in partnership with Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh City Libraries, Dance Base and the Scottish Storytelling Centre. The festival celebrates Scottish traditional dance and traditional dance practised by cultural migrant communities across Scotland. It provides a platform to showcase new dance commissions and residencies accompanied by live music, poetry, and art; and invites audiences to participate in ceilidhs, workshops (both in person and live streamed), tours, and talks about traditional dance from Scotland and around the world.

For tickets and more information visit https://linktr.ee/pomegranatesfest, https://www.tdfs.org/pomegranatesfest2024/

Dance adaptation of Hamish Henderson’s poetry at the Pomegranates Festival

ELEGIES – Saturday 27 April, 7.30pm 
Scottish Storytelling Centre, 43-45 High Street

Hamish Henderson (1919-2002), was a soldier-poet and scholar-folk revivalist. Elegies is his first-hand account from the North African desert military campaign for which he won the Somerset Maugham Award.

His dedication of the book: “for our own and the others” sets the story within our own common bonds, fragility and humanity, in the setting of the ‘deadlands’ of Cyrenaica (modern-day Libya). The Elegies also reveal the shared helplessness of those loved ones at home waiting, praying – and dancing.

This production is led by a duo of dancers and choreographers Helen Gould and George Adams who together with dancers Nicola Thomson, Edwin Wen and Aimee Williamson embody and represent the characters from the ten elegies set both in the desert and the dance hall by using ceilidh, jive, swing and lindy hop – the popular social dance culture of the 1940s. 

Through their movement directorship Gould and Adams weave into the dance, the reading of the Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica by spoken word artists Morag Anderson and Stephen Watt; and specially composed and newly arranged trad music and song by Cera Impala. 

Wendy Timmons and Iliyana Nedkova, Elegies co-curators and producers from Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland said: “Elegies is a dance poem of serious reflection – a lament for all lives lost not only in WWII but in our world of conflicts, oppression and inequality.

“We were delighted by the positive reaction we received when it was first performed on Remembrance Day last year, and very proud of everyone who has worked with us on this revised adaptation as part of this year’s Pomegranates Festival.”

Elegies was originally commissioned for the Scottish International Storytelling Festival 2023, then extended and revised for Pomegranates Festival 2024. 

Trad Dance Session

There will be a post-performance lindy hop social dance session, led and accompanied by Pomegranates 2024 resident musicians from the Castle Rock Jazz Band, in the main atrium at the Scottish Storytellling Centre. All welcome. Tickets are Pay What You Can £5, £10 or £15 and available through the Scottish Storytelling Centre Box Office here