Island event offers dancers a route to international stage
ABRAND new festival is to offer Wales’s dancing hopefuls a route into one of the world’s greatest cultural events – and the chance to compete for a share of £3,500.
In a ground-breaking partnership the inaugural Festival of Discovery on Anglesey in May will give 12 troupes of folk dancers the chance to perform on stage at this year’s Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod.
It’s the first time the Eisteddfod has allowed another event to act as a qualifier for its prestigious competitions which have helped launch the careers of world stars like Sir Bryn Terfel, Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo.
The Festival of Discovery Wales will take place at the Anglesey Showground over three days from Thursday, May 30, to Saturday, June 1, and is really three events rolled into one combining adventure, culture and the great outdoors.
It chimes with the Visit Wales campaign which has designated 2019 as the Year of Discovery and includes a programme of music, dance, food, nature, science, adventure and evening entertainment as well as the chance to take up a glamping offer of luxury tented accommodation on site.
Folk dance will be an integral part of the cultural section with four competitions, Traditional Folk-Dance Group, Choreographed/Stylized Folk-Dance Group, Children’s Traditional Folk-Dance Group, and Cultural Showcase – with the top three in each class invited to Llangollen in July – as well as dance workshops to introduce dance to a new audience.
Wales’s very own king of clog dancers, Huw Williams, winner of dancing crowns at Wales’s National Eisteddfod and at Llangollen Eisteddfod, will be among those running dance workshops at the festival and he will also be a judge for the dance competitions.
Huw, 59, from Brynmawr, Blaenau Gwent, has written songs for folk music legends Fairport Convention, performed with Ralph McTell and manages acclaimed Welsh band Calan which includes his daughter, Bethan Rhiannon, also a Welsh clog dance champion.
Festival of Discovery organiser Davina Carey-Evans, managing director of Beaumaris-based Sbarc Event Management, said: “It’s very exciting to have a partnership with Llangollen Eisteddfod and to have Huw Williams involved.
“He is a real legend of Welsh dance and this is a real opportunity to showcase dance as an important and vibrant element of Welsh culture and the competitions give a chance for dancers from across Wales to earn a place at the Eisteddfod and perhaps feature on the stage on Saturday night competing for the Dance Champions of the World title.”
Entries for the Festival’s four dance categories, must be in by March 29: entry details and full information on the three-day event, are on the website at festivalofdiscovery.wales/.