As the Pipes and Drums fill the Arena with sound, the Highland Dancers will take to the arena floor for 2027, adding colour and precision to the display. Moving in step with the pipers’ rhythms, their traditional routines bring a vivid, athletic energy that complements the bands’ precision.
It’s a moment where music and movement combine, embodying the “Nations in Step” spirit of this year’s Tattoo and showcasing the deep-rooted heritage that pipes, drums, and dance share on the Tattoo stage.
The Tattoo Highland Dancers will come from the Skelding School of Highland Dancing, a successful Highland Dancing school based in Corby that regularly performs at cultural events and community festivals. The school has been operating for more than 50 years and is led by Elaine Skelding, who is an accredited Highland Dancing champion and adjudicator having judged at international events in Canada, the USA, as well as the World Championships in Scotland. Elaine is assisted by her son Ross, who is also a champion dancer, adjudicator and the only dancer from England ever to win an overall title at the World Championships.
The school offers tuition for all ages and levels, from Beginner to Premier, and offers a wide range of performance opportunities.
The school has its base in Corby, which due to an influx of Scottish workers to the steelworks in the 1930s, and then further migration in the postwar years, meant that by 1961 over one-third of the town’s population had been born in Scotland, earning the town’s nickname as “Little Scotland”. Nowadays, the Corby Highland Gathering continues that tradition as an annual event with pipe bands, the All England Highland Dancing Championships and other Scottish cultural activities. Elaine’s late parents, Eli and Celia, were founding committee members for both the All England Highland Dancing Championships as well as Corby Highland Gathering as an event as a whole.
In 2023, Denni Carter, a champion dancer and teacher from the school, was the first dancer from Corby to take part in the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo and was the only English dancer to take part that year. Denni has danced at the event in Edinburgh multiple times since, as well as numerous other Tattoos around the world.
We look forward to welcoming Denni and the other dancers to the 2027 Birmingham International Tattoo.