Fair Saturday Ceilidh House

24th November 2023

Did you know that Fair Saturday is a global mobilisation that creates a positive social impact and provides an empathetic response to Black Friday. It brings artists and performers together from all over the world to create a celebration of culture and community. We are delighted that Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland and TRACS are taking part in this year’s Fair Saturday Festival which comprises more than 40 events across the country.

Join us this Fair Saturday, 25 November 2023 from 19:00 at our home in the Scottish Storytelling Centre to experience a twist on our Thistles and Sunflowers events, this time fusing Scottish and Ukrainian trad dance, live music and storytelling!

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Chris Lyons of Balkan Ceilidh Band 📷 by Chris Scott for Hidden Door Festival

Our Fair Saturday event features the Balkan Ceilidh band led by our Blue Giant Orkestar friend Chris Lyons who for the first time will accompany the trio of Ukrainain folk dancers Inna Semeniak, Tetiana Hordiienko and Anastasiia Boiko from Edinburgh’s own Dance Studio Kvity Ukrainy, as well as the incredible Scottish storyteller Tim Porteus and his Ukrainian counterparts.

You may have last seen Chris Lyons as part of our Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2023 debut as producers at the third iteration of our Thistles and Sunflowers show with the guest appearance of the award-winning vocalist Angela Rodel, embodying the power of the Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares. However, if you have missed it you can catch the highlights on our YouTube channel here.

We have been working with Chris, the Irish-Scot with a passion for wild and weird European tunes and dances, since our second annual Pomegranates 2023 festival. Read more about Chris and his trajectory in his beautiful blog published by our friends at Traditional Music Forum. In his own words:

I quite often get asked how it is that I ended up playing these styles of music and/or instruments. I don’t really have a good or exciting answer except that I have always been fascinated by collecting and learning new instruments and try to be involved in as many different styles as I can. I am a classically-trained pianist and violinist and have been gigging as a jazz musician since I was around 14 but later on I gradually picked up other instruments and now my studio has a pile of Ouds, Sazes, Banjos and various Lauotos and Lyras. I run or co-run the only two Balkan-style Brass bands in Scotland as well as a project performing traditional Greek music.

Chris Lyons

Similarly, we discovered the Ukrainian folk dancers Oksana Saiapina and Anastasiia Boiko at our second annual Pomegranates 2023 festival and continued to support them as part of our To Ukrane and Love project and the Harpies, Fechters and Quines Festival 2023 – our contribution to the 10th edition of this festival with a series of performances, talks and screenings featuring the feisty women of trad dance – all documented for you to explore in our 11-segment YouTube playlist here.

In the summer 2023 our project To Ukraine with Love continued to evolve, as we fostered a collaboration with Moray House School of Education and Sport, as well as Dance Base, Scotland’s National Centre for Dance to enable not only Oksana and Anastasiia but also another professionally trained trad dancer Tetiana Hordiienko to maintain their professional development by taking regular dance classes with Vincent Hantam.

For the first time as part of our Fair Saturday event, we will be pleased to introduce you to another professionally trained trad dancer Inna Semeniak of Kvity Ukrainy who will take to the stage together with Anastasiia Boiko and Tetiana Hordiienko.

What else to expect while celebrating Fair Saturday with us in the lovely setting of the Scottish Sorytelling Centre’s Storytelling Court? A warm and relaxed evening of dancing, music, stories, friendship and food presented in the traditional Scottish ceilidh style, also in anticipation of the forthcoming St. Andrew’s Day.

Fair Saturday Ceilidh House is curated by Daniel Abercrombie, Wendy Timmons and Iliyana Nedkova on behalf of TRACS, Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland and Scottish Storytelling Centre. It is supported by the Fair Saturday Foundation through the City of Edinburgh Council.

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