Elegies is the first dance adaptation for the screen and stage of Hamish Henderson’s series of poems Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica, specifically curated to premiere as part of the 34th edition of the Scottish International Storytelling Festival at Edinburgh’s Scottish Storytelling Centre on 11 November 2023 and available to tour thereafter.
PROGRAMME NOTES
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Curators and producers: Jim Mackintosh, Iliyana Nedkova and Wendy Timmons
Executive producer: Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland
#hamishmatters #righttobehuman #traddanceforumscotland
Elegies premiere night marked four important anniversaries – the 105th anniversary of the signing of the agreement to end the fighting of the First World War; the 104th birthday of the author Hamish Henderson (1919-2002); the 75th anniversary of the first publication of Hamish Henderson’s Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica and the 75th anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights resonating with the festival theme Right To Be Human and issues of social justice, peace movement and anti-militarism. It explores aspects of our common humanity.
★★★★☆ Evocative and relevant
Allan Wilson in All Edinburgh Theatre
★★★★☆ Respectful and sincere. Sombre and considerate
Dominic Corr in Corr Blimey
“There is no beauty in war. But within Elegies, laced amidst the pain and harrowing truth, beauty flourishes in sombre and considerate ways. Superlative, short and concise, Elegies adapts Henderson’s work into a powerful recitation of spoken word, paired with tightly and nuanced choreography to offer a firm and resilient response which champions the skills and power of storytelling as a first line of defence of natural, communal, and reverent good against those who would utilise it for ill.” Dominic Corr in Corr Blimey
Elegies creative team
Lead dancers and choreographers: Helen Gould and George Adams
Community cast of dancers: Nicola Thomson and Edwin Wen
Spoken word artists: Morag Anderson and Stephen Watt
Live music and vocals: Cera Impala
Lighting and audio visuals: Roddy Simpson
Videographer: Barrie Barreto
Additional support: Kätzel Henderson, Donald Smith, Steve Byrne, Ling Hong, Jayden Xie, Marianella Desanti, Róisín O’Brien, William Diamond, Rob Armitage, Team Scottish Storytelling Centre and Team Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland (TRACS)
The Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica are considered by many as the finest poetic writings to come out of the Second World War and have won the Somerset Maugham Award 1949. The epic poems highlight the tragic chaos and waste of life without losing sight of humanity and what we can do even now to save ourselves from ourselves. To listen to Hamish Henderson‘s own reading of the Prologue and the First Elegy, explore this audio recording from 1964 here.
“Our ambition is for this new adaptation of the Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica to become an innovative dance celebration of Hamish Henderson, the soldier-poet and scholar-folk revivalist, but also a dance poem of serious reflection – a lament for all lives lost in our challenging world of wars and pandemics, political and economic oppression, ecocide and inequality.”
Jim Mackintosh, Iliyana Nedkova and Wendy Timmons, Elegies curators/producers
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Photographs of Elegies rehearsals at the Dance Studio at our academic partner Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh featuring Helen Gould, George Adams, Nicola Thomson and Edwin Wen. Images by Jeyden Xie. Watch the accompanying video auhored by Ling Hong.
Elegies is produced by Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland. Curated by Jim Mackintosh, Iliyana Nedkova and Wendy Timmons. Commissioned by the Scottish International Storytelling Festival through the Scottish Government’s Expo Fund. Additional funding provided by Creative Scotland.
Further research and development enabled through Cultural Bridge’s Strictly Schottisch and Scottish project. Cultural Bridge is a celebration of bilateral artistic partnerships between the UK and Germany through the collaboration between Arts Council England, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, British Council, Creative Scotland, Fonds Soziokultur, Goethe-Institut London and Wales Arts International / Arts Council of Wales.
In-kind support by our academic partner Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh and DannsEd – The University of Edinburgh Dance Company and Society – our major partner for the community cast and crew of Elegies, including Nicola Thomson, Edwin Wen, Jeyden Xie, Marianella Desanti and Ling Hong. DannsEd enables professional dance artists to pursue their practice, including students and alumni of MSc Dance Science and Education at Moray House School of Education and Sport.
ILIYANA NEDKOVA 