Common Ground

Join the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland for a one-night-only triple bill of traditional dance theatre that carries memory, joy and resilience from across the Commonwealth. 

Mountains  

Firstly, hear the high places with Nic Gareiss – one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” and virtuoso percussive dancer who served as the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland 2018-2019 artist-in-residence. 

In this solo which blends footwork, speaking and song, Gareiss shares step dance rhythms from the Appalachian mountains (ranging from Nova Scotia through Québec, south to the Blue Ridge in what some people call the United States) as well as from the Scottish Highlands, Ireland’s Sliabh Luchra (Rushy Mountain) region and Surrey’s St. George’s Hill. Blurring the boundaries between sound and gesture, dancer and musician, Gareiss offers a singular blend of traditional dance, text and song mapping the cadence of these knolls, peaks and hollers.

Oceans  

Then, deep dive to the ocean floor with Drift – a haunting ensemble piece fresh from its premiere at the Edinburgh Science Festival 2026.  

Choreographed by Madeline Squire, First Artist with Scottish Ballet 2014-2025, it is inspired by the complex structures of coral reefs. Watch as the dancers weave their limbs together, competing for space as their environment shrinks – mirroring how marine life becomes displaced when their habitats are destroyed. A reminder that the Commonwealth Small Island States, including Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana and Jamaica, are facing disproportionate threats not only from overfishing and sea-level rise but from the subsequent loss of dance cultures and traditions.  

Common Ground  

Finally, after celebrating the common wealth of our mountains and oceans and their remarkable capacity for cooperation and renewal, enjoy the world premiere of Common Ground.  

Co-choreographed by Nicholas Shoesmith and Sotirios Panagoulias, this brand new ensemble piece fuses traditional dance styles from across the Commonwealth – from grounded pulses of South African Gumboot, from the swirling grace of Indian Bhangra and the syncopated patterns of Caribbean Reggae, to the precision of the Scottish Highland Fling.  

With live music from Lucy Allan and a company of Scotland-based dancers, each with Commonwealth heritage, this is contemporary tradition at its most powerful. It brings inherited Commonwealth movement vocabularies into shared space – not to erase differences, but to find the harmonies. The stage becomes a ceilidh–gathering where every accent, gesture and rhythm are like stepping stones, paving the common ground that connects us all.