WHAT happens when an Irish dancer, a Scottish Highland dancer and a bagpiper begin pulling apart the traditions they grew up with?
That is the intriguing proposition behind not for glory, which comes to Cecil Sharp House in London on Tuesday, October 13.
The dance-theatre production brings together former professional Irish dancer Jack Anderson and Highland dancer and choreographer Charlotte Mclean, working with Scottish piper, fiddler and composer Malin Lewis.
It also provides an interesting companion to the question of why Irish and Scottish dancing can look so strikingly different despite the considerable musical inheritance shared by the two countries.
The performers themselves have complicated relationships with those traditions.
Anderson began dancing professionally in 2008 and toured internationally with Rhythm of the Dance and Celtic Legends. He later worked with former Riverdance principal Breandán de Gallaí's Ériu Dance Company, an experience which encouraged his interest in other forms of movement.
He subsequently trained at the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance and spent more than a decade away from Irish dancing before returning to it during the development of Not for Glory.
Mclean's starting point is Scottish Highland dancing, which she practised competitively as a child before moving into contemporary dance. She studied at London Contemporary Dance School and has subsequently worked internationally as a performer and choreographer.
The pair's contrasting traditions give the production much of its physical vocabulary: the precise, sharply articulated movements of Irish dance meeting the leaps, arm movements and distinctive shapes of Highland dancing.
Providing the musical third side of the triangle is Malin Lewis, an innovative Scottish piper, fiddler, instrument maker and composer.
Lewis combines Scotland's west coast piping tradition with contemporary influences and even performs on a self-made bagpipe. Their debut album, Halocline, released in 2024, attracted considerable critical attention.
Not for Glory is not, however, intended simply as a showcase for three traditional performers.
Instead, Anderson, Mclean and Lewis take apart some of the conventions they inherited, exploring their relationships with competition, identity, gender, class and the history surrounding traditional performance.
That involves affection as well as irreverence. Irish and Highland dance are distorted, loosened and combined with contemporary movement, while traditional piping encounters decidedly modern rhythms.
At its heart is the question of whether performers can challenge aspects of a tradition without rejecting the tradition itself.
That seems particularly appropriate for Irish and Scottish dance. Their music has travelled back and forth across the North Channel for centuries, while their dances developed strikingly different identities.
not for glory brings those separate strands back onto the same stage — not so much to discover which tradition has the best moves, perhaps, as to find out what happens when nobody feels obliged to obey the old rules.
Not for Glory is at Cecil Sharp House, 2 Regent's Park Road, London NW1, on Tuesday, October 13, from 7.30pm. Tickets £20.50; £16.50 for under-30s.
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