Thistles and Sunflowers
Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2023
(Tue 22 Aug: 9:45pm)
Join us for an exclusive, one-off late-night extravaganza featuring Celtic and Balkan traditional dance, music and stories from the lands of thistles, shamrocks and sunflowers.
See the trad dance duo Ariana Stoyanova and Alexis Street who brought us the ‘uplifting and merrily synergistic’ dance fusion Thistles and Sunflowers at Pomegranates 2023 Festival. They are joined once again by fellow Highland and Bulgarian folk dancers and for the first time by Scottish and Irish step dancers, including Alison Carlyle.
Marvel at the dissonant harmonies and vibrant ecstasy of the Bulgarian folk song tradition in the vocals of the American-Bulgarian Angela Rodel, the winner of the International Booker Prize 2023 for translation. Discover how the three cultures shaped by the bagpipes resemble and diverge from each other. Feel how dance and voice converge in the accompanying instrumentals of Chris Lyons and friends – the tunetastic trans-European nerds from Scotland’s own Blue Giant Orkestar.
'An amiable, gently choreographed international dance battle. No shade is thrown, only affection.' (The Quinntessential Review)
Curated by Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland for Edinburgh Fringe 2023 with the support of TRACS, the Scottish Storytelling Centre, Moray House School of Education and Sport at the University of Edinburgh, the Bulgarian Cultural and Educational Centre Scotland and the Edinburgh International Book Festival.
