An International Festival and a dance with breakfast! 10

For over 50 years, Dunedin Dancers have run biennial International Folk Dance Festivals in Edinburgh. Each Festival brings together two or three folk dance groups representing different dance traditions from across Europe, learning each other’s dances and celebrating the diversity of traditional dancing.

This summer Dunedin is organising its 26th International Folk Festival in conjunction with Edinburgh University New Scotland Country Dance Society. It will be held 6-9 July 2023, based at Edinburgh Academy Junior School. Guests will be Agrupación Folklórica Celme, a dance group from Pontevedra in Spain, and Belgian group Gelmelzwaaiers Hoogstraten, who perform with flags. A third group may join the event, yet to be confirmed.

The festival will feature public displays of traditional music and dance at various venues around Edinburgh, finishing with a performance at Stirling Castle on Sunday 9 July. Each group will also share their dance styles with the other participants in workshops.

Everyone is very welcome to come and watch the performances (more details will be published shortly). You are also welcome to take an active part in the festival –though you do need to be a member of Dunedin or New Scotland in order to participate (see Dunedin’s website to become a member). We are looking for people who want to perform: perhaps you would like to join the team of musicians or dancers. However you don’t need to perform in order to take part; you are welcome to get involved in other ways, muck in with the many jobs associated with the festival, befriend our guests, and join in the evening parties.

We are also looking for hosts to accommodate our European visitors, and provide bed and breakfast for a few nights. If you would like to make some new friends from overseas who share your love of music and dance, this is a great way to meet them!

For more information contact Ian and Caroline Brockbank at enquiries@dunedindancers.org.uk

Re-discovering Scottish Country Dancing: a report from our Beginners’ Class

My earliest memory of Scottish Country Dancing was as something my sisters got packed off to on a Saturday afternoon at Cramond Kirk Hall – though I confess I didn’t then feel deprived at my exclusion. Wind forward and I remember my parents occasionally going to grand balls and dancing through the night until breakfast was served –this sounded more interesting. And later still I had the occasional brush with ceilidhs and wondered why they weren ’t compulsory, with the infectious cheeriness of the jigs lifting the spirits and setting the feet a-tapping. How good, I thought, would it be to participate fully by knowing the dances.

So off I took myself to a local RSCDS beginners class on a Monday evening. It was great to find myself among a mixed group of folk all there to enjoy learning. Under Yoshi’s enthusiastic but patient guidance, a good group made steady progress with the basic steps and formations while building up a reasonable repertoire of dances from The Duke of Atholl’s Reel to The Deil amang the Tailors and, a favourite of mine, the slow Strathspey, Rakes of Glasgow.

We were extremely fortunate in having Ewan Galloway playing accordion for us – I can’t overstate the difference it makes having such an accomplished musician encouraging

When the end of term came I had no hesitation in signing up again for the Advanced Beginners class. I’ve certainly got a long way to go to achieve proficiency and I’ve a lot to learn; but maybe some day I’ll achieve that ambition of attending an all-night dance and boy will I enjoy the breakfast!

Andrew Bothwell

Leave a Legacy

As a charity we rely on charitable donations, and by leaving a legacy to the Edinburgh Branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society Anniversary Fund, you not only help to build a resilient, dynamic future for Scottish dancing; your gift will also support meaningful initiatives such as training new teachers and musicians, supporting talented young dancers, or giving schools access to our schools outreach programme.

Visit our website, or contact us, if you would like to learn how a gift in your will can make a real difference in the future to Scottish country dancing.