As part of the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland’s Pomegranates 2024 festival of international traditional dance, a new exhibition, Dance Around the World, is on display at Central Library until 30 April 2024.
Dance Around the World displays over 100 items on loan from public and private collections of world traditional dance books and artefacts. It features items from over 20 different countries including Scotland, Greece, Estonia, Poland, Bali and Japan.
Our collaboration with Edinburgh Central Library began in June 2023 when we brought trad dance performances to the library, possibly for the first time, while celebrating the feisty women-tradition keepers and dance innovators as part of the 10th anniversary of the Harpies, Fechters and Quines Festival. We even recorded one of our Trad Dance Cast video podcast episodes at the library with the legendary trad dance artist and costume maker Margaret Belford. It was then when we pencilled and penned our love letter to the library – this very dance exhibition and all the related festival activities, including the craft workshops and the walking tour.
Iliyana Nedkova, Co-curator of the Dance Around the World exhibition
Some of the exhibition highlights include an Ukrainian folk dance headdress commissioned for their inaugural Pomegranates Festival 2022 in tribute to the millions of displaced Ukrainians around the world (pictured in the exhibition poster and the installation view above); an original Estonian dance dolly ‘rescued’ from a Finnish flea market and a full outfit worn at Scottish country dances since 1978 by a lifetime member of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society.
This year’s festival commission is a Barbie doll clad in a tartan frock! It is by their fashion designer-in-residence Alison Harm of Edinburgh’s Psychomoda brand, whose solo exhibition Vengefully Changed Allegiance offers further insight into her sustainable fashion practice while exploring the role of tartan in Scottish trad dance.
Alongside the numerous books on display selected from seven private collections, as well as the catalogue of the Edinburgh City Libraries, there are rare artefacts, including a pair of exquisite lacquer Geta shoes and an Obi bow and sash belt worn as part of the traditional wrap-around costumes for the Bon Odori summer dance festivals in Japan, and at our inaugural Pomegranates Festival 2022 in Scotland.
Look out for the Vengefully Changed Allegiance exhibition at the Scottish Storytelling Centre from 23 to 30 April 2024, as well as the Pomegranates festival programme of craft workshops, dance, shows and walking tours.
Tales of One City 
