Scotland has always been a land of stories, whispered by the fire, sung on the wind, or carried in the steps of a reel. Here, storytelling isn’t confined to the spoken word – it flows through music, song and dance. While your mind might conjure up ceilidhs and Scottish country dancing when you think of the latter, ballet is (rather surprisingly) there too. Matthew Bourne’s Highland Fling is a favourite of Scottish Ballet, while the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) nurtures a generation of performers who are not only technically talented but gifted storytellers, too.
For Devon Martirez y McFarland, who was raised in LA, his fascination with the arts began during sleepovers at his Godmother’s house in San Francisco. Following afternoons out exploring the city, his daydreams would drift as the pair watched the New York City Ballet’s Swan Lake – a childhood memory that has stayed with him since. Though he dabbled in classes when young, it wasn’t until he was 12 that his fathers encouraged him to revisit dance. “There’s a stigma that you must start at five to be a professional ballet dancer, but that’s not necessarily true,” he says. “I was just an outdoorsy kid looking for a hobby. I found a local studio and fell in love with it.”
