thistle and heather

The Thistle & Heather Highland Dancers of Chicagoland, founded in 1981, perform the colorful, expressive and physically demanding traditional Scottish Highland and National Dances.

Nancy Strolle Founder & Director n_strolle Nancy Strolle, founder and director of the group, has been involved with Highland Dance since she was five years old. She has studied in Scotland, and is a Member o (6).png

Ensembles of Thistle & Heather dancers have performed with Celtic Rock Bands the Red Hot Chilli Pipers and Skerryvore, as well as Scottish Fiddler, Alasdair Fraser and Cellist, Natalie Haas, and world renowned violinist, Rachel Barton Pine.

Over the years, they have performed for half-time at a Chicago Bulls Game, at the Heartland International Tattoo and in “Dance Chicago”. The dancers annually appear in the Chicago Thanksgiving Day Parade, at Daley Plaza for St. Andrew’s Day and Tartan Day, and at the Museum of Science and Industry for Christmas Around the World.

Additionally many of the dancers compete at the local, regional, national, and international level. Members of the group were also among the first fourteen dancers from the United States to participate in the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in 2015.

Weekly classes are held in North Riverside

Dancers range in age from three years old to adult.

Dancers are available to perform for a wide variety of functions.

Highland Dancing provides participants the opportunity to gain poise, self-confidence, stage presence, ethnic tradition, uniqueness, self-discipline, aerobic exercise, lifelong friendships and a variety of other positive benefits. It is the desire of the Thistle & Heather Highland Dancers to make Scottish dancing accessible to as many students as possible. Dancers need not be of Scottish heritage to participate.

Many of the Highland Dances trace their beginnings to times of war and were performed by the Scottish soldiers. The Sword Dance is the prediction dance, said to have been done prior to battle. It was believed that if the soldier touched or displaced the sword in any way it was a bad omen. The Highland Fling is the victory dance done on the “targe“ (shield) of the defeated warrior. The Sean Triubhas came about in the rebellion of 1745 when the English forbid the Scots to wear their kilts. This dance represents the repeal of the act and the return to wearing the free flowing, beloved kilt. Today, Highland Dance is female dominated and many of the national dances such as Flora MacDonald’s Fancy and the Scottish Lilt are softer in feel than the traditional Highland Dances.