As part of this year’s Pomegranates Festival, Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland presents the first dance adaptation of Scotland’s own Hamish Henderson’s award-winning poetry Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica,considered among the finest poetic writing to come out of the Second World War. The show, entitled Elegies, was originally commissioned for the Scottish International Storytelling Festival 2023, then subsequently extended and revised for Pomegranates Festival 2024.
Hamish Henderson, (1919-2002), was a soldier-poet and scholar-folk revivalist. Elegies is his first-hand account from the North African desert military campaign for which he won the Somerset Maugham Award 75 years ago. His dedication of the book: “for our own and the others” sets the story within our own common bonds, fragility and humanity, in the setting of the ‘deadlands’ of Cyrenaica, which is now Libya. The Elegiesalso reveal the shared helplessness of those loved ones at home waiting, praying – and dancing.
This production is led by a duo of dancers and choreographers Helen Gould and George Adams who together with dancers Nicola Thomson, Edwin Wen and Aimee Williamson represent the characters from the ten elegies set both in the desert and the dance hall by using ceilidh, jive, swing and lindy hop which were part of the popular social dance culture of the 1940s.
Through their movement directorship Gould and Adams weave the reading of the Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica by spoken word artists Morag Anderson and Stephen Watt into the dance with specially composed and newly arranged trad music and song by Cera Impala.
Elegies co-curators and producers from Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland Wendy Timmons and Iliyana Nedkova, said “Elegies is a dance poem of serious reflection – a lament for all lives lost not only in WWII but in our world of conflicts, oppression and inequality. We were delighted by the positive reaction we received when it was first performed on Remembrance Day last year, and very proud of everyone who has worked with us on this revised adaptation as part of this year’s Pomegranates Festival.”
There will be a post-performance lindy hop social dance session in the main atrium at the Scottish Storytellling Centre, led and accompanied by Pomegranates 2024 resident musicians from the Castle Rock Jazz Band. Tickets are Pay What You Can £5, £10 or £15 and available through the Scottish Storytelling Centre Box Office.
Date and time: Saturday 27th April at 7.30pm
Venue: Scottish Storytelling Centre, 43-45 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1SR
Irene Brown
Radio Summerhall Arts 