Step to the beat and enjoy beauty of dance traditions
Exhibition looks at different world cultures
The steps may vary slightly and the costumes massively, but there is a lot that unites the world’s dance traditions.
A new exhibition with more than 100 items on loan from public and private collections of world traditional dance books and artefacts is part of this year’s Pomegranates Festival in Edinburgh. Dance Around
The World features exhibits from Scotland, Greece, Estonia and Japan.
“It’s a positive way of connecting between different cultures,” said co-curator and artist-in-residence Mare Tralla. “In a world so ridden with violence at the moment, if we just put that aside and connect on these levels and exchange the knowledge, joy and beauty of these traditions, it would make it a much better place.”
A special piece commissioned for the exhibition is a Barbie doll clad in a tartan frock by the festival’s fashion designerin-residence, Alison Harm, of Edinburgh’s Psychomoda brand. Highlights also include a headdress commissioned in tribute to the millions of displaced Ukrainians, and an original Estonian dance dolly found in a Finnish flea market. From closer to home is a full outfit worn at Scottish country dances since 1978 by a lifetime member of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society.
Mare, who grew up in Soviet-era Estonia, has a personal connection to one of the exhibits, a silver brooch with a Viking ship motif belonging to her grandmother. “We had dance and traditional folk songs that were very much part of everyday culture,” she said. “She wore the brooch all the time. It always makes me smile. Her name was on one of the books too.”
Also sifting through her memories for the display was Agnes Ness, an Edinburgh-based dance artist and historian. She spent her childhood in competitive Highland dance in the 1950s, and has been a dance history teacher for decades, sampling various cultures from across the world. “I was so excited to go through my own library, photo albums and memorabilia and select a range of books, postcards and medals – a wee testimony for my lifelong passion,” she said.
“I was just a wee Scottish lassie who got put to dance because I was one of a big family and I don’t think my mum knew what to do with me. She sent me at the age of two and a half. Now I’m 82 and a half, you never get away from it!” Organised by the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland for Edinburgh’s 2024 Pomegranates Festival, Mare hopes the exhibition will inspire people to be more curious about traditional culture.
She said: “Every continent has at least a bit of representation and that’s the highlight of the exhibition. It could have been heavily Scottish or European but I like that there’s something from everywhere.”
Dance Around The World is at Edinburgh’s Central Library until April 30