Edinburgh lets its hair down with feast of cultural events to see in the New Year

Taking place in locations throughout central Edinburgh tomorrow, Scot: lands offers a smorgasboard of live music, theatre, dance, film, poetry and more. Susan Mansfield looks at what’s in store across the city

Afrobeat grooves, flamenco fusion, Indian dancers, Chilean guitar maestros: celebrating Scottish culture in Edinburgh on 1 January 2017 might have some unexpected new flavours.

This year, for the first time, Scot: lands, the post-hogmanay cultural treasure hunt which has become a staple of New Year in Edinburgh, will have a venue dedicated to “New Scots”: dancers, musicians, theatre and filmmakers who have their roots elsewhere but have made Scotland their home.

One of nine “Lands” held in secret locations across the centre of the city, New Scots: land promises a colourful programme, including a solo set from Rise Kagona of the Bhundu Boys, charismatic Senegalese singer Samba Sene, guitarists Carlos Arrendondo and Galo Ceron Carrasco, and flamenco music and dance from Cheekyrrikis.

“It’s a very small sample of the people out there, living and working in Scotland, creating great work,” says New Scots: land coordinator Morag Neil. “We called it New Scots: land after a lot of thought because they do identify as Scots, they are strands in the Scottish tartan and the country is so much richer because of it.”

It’s a very small sample ofthe people living and working in Scotland, creating great work

Eight different companies will perform across three spaces, including one dedicated to a film programme. There is also new theatre made especially for New Scots: land by writer and director Annie George. Her three ten-minute plays have a combined title of New Year’s Revolutions. One Pot, about food and cultural appropriation, is performed by Alloysious Massaquoi of Young Fathers, The Future is Now is staged by Annie herself, and All Mixed Up by her two teenage daughters, Eve and Amber Allan.

“Each piece is about some kind of rebellion, turning things on their head,” George says. “The piece I’m devising with my daughters came about because my eldest, who is 29, recently got verbally assaulted getting on a bus. All my three children are mixed race, Indian and Scottish, and we found that a bit of a shock. There are a lot of children in Scotland now from mixed heritage and we thought it might be interesting to delve into that.”

Neil says that, while there are issues to be explored, the emphasis is still on fun. “It’s not about hitting people over the head with any sort of message. It’s about saying: check out what we’ve got here, listen to what people