Nicole and Kate Perform in the Bremen, Germany Tattoo
Highland Dancer Diary
Hi! We’re Nicole (Saorsa Studio owner and highland dance judge) and Kate (Saorsa Studio manager). As highland dancers and longtime friends, we have long dreamed of traveling to perform in a Tattoo together.
A Tattoo is a large performance hosted in an arena, featuring hundreds of performance acts from around the world – including highland dancers!
In November 2024, we both auditioned for the opportunity to perform in the Bremen Tattoo in Germany in January 2025. When we got the news we’d been accepted as performers for the International Tattoo Highland Dance team, we got to planning!
Bremen Tattoo Travel Diary: Watch the Vlog!
Watch the latest vlog on the Saorsa Studio Youtube channel: a video diary of our experience in Denmark and at the Bremen Tattoo in Germany!
First Stop: Copenhagen, Denmark
We decided to add a few days of travel before arriving in Germany for the Tattoo, so we ended up in Copenhagen, Denmark.
We spent 3 wonderful days exploring Copenhagen: eating so many sweet treats, sightseeing, having great meals, visiting museums, and enjoying a lovely pool and sauna evening. Read Kate’s guide to visiting Copenhagen >
Each morning was spent in the hotel gym practicing the steps for the dances we’d be performing in the Tattoo. We were sent videos in advance of the steps being performed at a show in Berlin, so we just had to learn from the recordings.
Heading to Bremen
Two days before rehearsals were set to begin, we flew from Copenhagen to Bremen. We spent that first day doing pretty much nothing – exploring Copenhagen had been lovely, but exhausting.
We continued with our little rehearsals in our tiny hotel room – the choreography had been simple enough to learn, but getting it to stick in your head can be difficult!
The second day was spent exploring Bremen – a highlight was Schnoor, the small old section of the city. We bought some keepsakes, ate a nice dinner, and enjoyed the music and lights show put on at night in the downtown core.
We thought that rehearsals would begin on our third day in Bremen, the Thursday before a weekend of shows. But it turned out that most people wouldn’t be arriving in the city until late Thursday, so we had another day to explore a museum and spend time with Nicole’s family who had flown in to see the show!
Rehearsals Begin
Late Thursday night, we finally took our luggage to go check into the accommodations provided for the dancers. This turned out to be a hostel, where we were lucky to share a room with just one additional roommate, Fiona.
We woke early Friday morning to begin with rehearsals. We walked about 15 minutes to the venue, and spent an hour figuring out our spots and walking the dance through to plan the formations. It was a chilly start to the day!
After lunch, we began rehearsing in the venue. We spent the afternoon getting the dance smoothed out and starting to clean up our lines.
We had a break for dinner, and then spent the evening doing rehearsals in the actual performance space. We got to see the set with a super cool backdrop for the first time, and got to see some of the other acts rehearse.
Other than the dancers and the pipe band we were accompanying, there were acts from all over world, including the Netherlands, Mexico, China, Ukraine, Poland, the UK, and more.
From what we could tell, it was set to be a very impressive show!
By the time this rehearsal day ended, around 9:30pm, we were exhausted. We walked back to the hostel, crushed a bag of chips, and fell asleep.
Performances begin for the Bremen Tattoo
On Saturday, we woke and did our performance hair early and began with a full run through of the show with the full cast. Then, more dance rehearsals to make our last minute adjustments.
Before the show, we went to a nearby grocery store to stock up on all of the essentials that a high-performance athlete needs: energy drinks, pastries, and chips.
After our break, we did our makeup and warmed up for the first show. We only took part in the second half of the show, so we had lots of time to warm up our bodies that were starting to feel sore and tired.
The first show was a big success, and we were all pretty impressed with ourselves for pulling it together so quickly – only one day of rehearsal!
We went for dinner with our roommate, Fiona, then got dressed and warmed up for show #2.
Now, our bodies were definitely feeling the soreness.
The second show was the one Nicole’s family had seen, so when it finished around midnight, we went out for drinks with her husband.
We continued to eat our German chips of choice, Jumpys, everywhere we went. Including the bar where we got drinks after the show. They were addictive.
We stumbled home, exhausted after a very long day.
Final day in Germany
Sunday was our final day, and it started with absolute exhaustion. But luckily, we didn’t have anywhere to be until our show in the mid-afternoon.
We got coffee, lunch, and more energy drinks to revive ourselves, and Nicole took a 2 minute nap – perfect!
We did our hair and makeup one last time and walked to the venue for show #3.
Following our final show (a great success, as were the first two!), we all had some time to get ourselves turned around before heading to a team dinner.
We miraculously found a restaurant that could take a party of 25 with no reservation, and then had a lovely meal with our fellow dancers. We even got to try vegan versions of some local delicacies – not always easy to find for two vegetarians!
Heading home
The next morning, we left the hostel early to begin our full day of travel back to New Brunswick.
Even though we were completely exhausted, and ready to escape the seemingly endless grey of Germany in January, we were so glad to have been able to experience this together. We’ve each done Tattoo performances before, but this was the first we’d been able to attend together!
Even when our legs ached, our bathroom floor was eternally flooded, and we didn’t see the sun for a whole week, we managed to have lots of laughs and make great memories. Until next time!!
