Six years ago Kristina Sanne, Director and Lead Teacher at Jacaranda Highland Dancers in Grafton, was approached by a few persuasive Glen Innes families keen to have highland dancing classes made available in Glen Innes for their children.
Despite some initial misgivings about the logistics of expanding her dance studio, and the commute up the Gwydir, Kristina said yes. She now teaches at the Masonic Lodge Hall on Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings, once a fortnight. The studio continues to grow and currently there are 20 children and 2 adult students from a wide range of backgrounds, not just for those with Scottish heritage, as some might expect.
The Jacaranda Highland Dancers have been a feature of the Glen Innes Celtic Festival for several years performing in different events over the weekend. Kristina says she will have as many of her students as possible participating in this year’s Street Parade on Saturday morning, and later the dancers will perform across Saturday and Sunday at the Standing Stones as part of the Australian Celtic Festival.
A highlight of the Festival for Kristina is seeing local dancers get up and perform before their family and friends and having fun. “Outside of our dancing, we just have a great time. The kids come and dance, then mingle, go over to the big stage, hear the music and off they go dancing again. said Kristina.
As Glen Innes honours Celtic culture at the Festival, it is a good time to remind ourselves of the rich history behind many dances. For example, there is a dance known as Seann Triubhas (a Scottish Gaelic phrase for old trousers) which is said to link to a time when the British Government had banned wearing of the kilt in an attempt to quash Highland culture. The ban was lifted in 1782 and Highlanders were no longer forced to wear trousers – the kilt was back! According to some, the dance steps of Seann Triubhas celebrate the lifting of the ban with steps designed to show the advantages of dancing in a kilt, instead of trousers.
Another old Scottish favourite is the Reel of Tulloch. Here the story goes that on a cold, wintry day in Tulloch the Minister was late for church and the congregation, who were shivering and waiting outside the church, started to dance and spin around to warm up – steps which are still a feature of the choreography. Apparently the weather was so horrid that the Minister himself did not turn up, thinking that none of his parishioners would come to church in such cold weather.
To enrich her students’ dancing education and compete with Highland dancers from around the world, Kristina is taking a troupe of dancers – including several from Glen Innes – to Scotland in August 2025 for the Scottish and World Highland Dancing Competition which is part of the Highland Gathering held in Dunoon. In the month leading up to the Finals in Dunoon, the girls will compete at highland dancing competitions all around Scotland where they can win prizes if they receive favourable comments from the judges. Happily for her dancers, the prizes are cash, which will help fund the trip. While families and dancers pay for the trips themselves, the group has been fundraising at local venues (such as the Men’s Shed Markets at the Showground) to assist them to pay the entry fees for each of the competitions, which are about $40 a pop, and also to attend specialist highland dance classes in Scotland.
As a former competitive dancer, Kristina has made the pilgrimage to Dunoon more than ten times. She said that it is even more special for her now that she is a teacher: “to have my kids doing Scottish dancing on stage with the best in the world, looking up into a grandstand with 1000 people makes me very proud, and absolutely worth all my blood, my sweat, and the rubber on my tyres driving to Glen Innes!”
If you would like to find out more about the Jacaranda Highland Dancers or donate to their fundraising, please contact Kristina on 0432 214 241.
