Edinburgh show reimagines Highland and Irish dance traditions
A new Edinburgh festival production, Not for Glory, sees a former champion Irish dancer, a former competitive Highland dancer and a piper confront and reclaim the folk traditions they grew up with. The show runs at Assembly @ Dance Base until 23 August before transferring to London.
A genre-bending dance-theatre production at this year's Edinburgh festival is putting a fresh spin on Highland and Irish dance traditions. Not for Glory brings together three performers reckoning with the artistic legacies they inherited as children.
Jack Anderson once toured internationally as a champion Irish dancer, but concealed that background after enrolling at a contemporary dance school, treating it almost as an embarrassment. Charlotte Mclean grew up competing in Highland dance, admitting she was drawn more to winning than to the dance form itself. Alongside piper Malin Lewis, the pair use the show to process these inherited traditions through distortion, deconstruction and humour, ultimately reclaiming them on their own terms.
Lewis previously earned acclaim for the 2024 album Halocline, which led to them being described as representing the future of Scottish folk music. In the show, Lewis experiments with new possibilities for the bagpipes, while Anderson draws on the sharp, segmented movement style associated with Irish dance.
The production touches on themes including forgotten histories, the pressures of competition, and dance's ties to class, the military, gender and political resistance, as well as questions about what makes a dance style considered fashionable or worthwhile. While many classical and traditional dance forms have already been reinterpreted by contemporary artists, Highland dance has rarely received similar treatment.
The show has been described as loose and somewhat unstructured, lacking tighter focus in places. Still, its strongest moments come when the three performers speak candidly about their histories and show renewed appreciation for the art forms they once distanced themselves from.
Not for Glory continues at Assembly @ Dance Base in Edinburgh until 23 August, before moving to Cecil Sharp House in London as part of the Dance Umbrella festival.
