How could we support communities of New Scots to shape and share their stories? As one of the three founding members of TRACS, Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland initiated To Ukraine with Love – a project aimed at supporting the community of displaced people from Ukraine in Edinburgh to shape and share the story of … Continued

What would happen if there was only one leaf left on our planet? What would be the fate of the last remaining leaf? How fragile is our life compared to the power of nature? These are just some of the questions at the heart of Yuxi Jiang’s new choreography entitled The Last Leaf on Earth. … Continued

  Having sown the seeds and sequins of Pomegranates 2023 festival this spring – our second annual festival of international traditional dance, we are excited to share some of the facts and figures with you. We welcomed 74 artists to our stages, screens and dance floors – all from 30 diverse backgrounds, including Ukraine and … Continued

In 2022, as part of the SISF Community and Family Programme, The Stone Soup Collective project took place. It was a series of community events facilitated by a storyteller in partnership with a community hub in their local area. A ceilidh of stories, song, and dance with shared food, right in the heart of the … Continued

The Burgh Blatherers is an Edinburgh based group with a relatively short but vibrant history. We started as a small group of likeminded friends coming together informally to practice and share stories in a safe and supportive environment. These mutually supportive gatherings were given a sense of focus and direction when dynamic storyteller, Calum Lykan … Continued

Introduction by Iliyana Nedkova and Wendy Timmons, Pomegranates 2023 Co-curators * We are delighted to shine the spotlight on Ian McMillan – our Pomegranates Festival 2023 poet-in-residence – an author of Scottish heritage and Barnsley-based broadcaster, presenting the widely popular poetry show The Verb every week on BBC Radio 3, whose latest book My Sand … Continued

Review by Wangxiu Cheng Did you know that Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland commissions and publishes reviews of trad dance events across Scotland and beyond? Following Meditarraneo, Cosmic Dance and Auld Lang Syne, this is the fourth review by our student-in-residence Wangxiu Cheng – an award-winning graduate of the prestigious Beijing Dance Academy. Wangxiu is … Continued

We are pleased to introduce Gabriel Schmitz – one of the newly commissioned artists-in-residence at our Pomegranates 2023 festival. Born in 1970 in Dortmund, Schmitz is a visual artist who after graduating from Edinburgh College of Art, settled in Barcelona where he has lived and worked since the mid 1990s. In response to our curatorial … Continued

Review by Wangxiu Cheng and Yan Hong We welcome back student teacher-in-residence Wangxiu Cheng for her second-term residency 30 January–10 March 2023 with us at Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland. Wangxiu is an award-winning graduate of the prestigious Beijing Dance Academy. She is currently undertaking her MSc studies in Dance Science and Education at the … Continued

We are delighted to announce the return of our Pomegranates festival – sowing the seeds of international traditional dance across Edinburgh this spring. Initiated and curated by the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland, the annual festival will once again mark UNESCO’s International Dance Day on 29 April 2023. The second iteration of our festival weekend … Continued