Artist of the month: Dannsa with First Harvest
Background
The performers
Tune Up tour
Dannsa, a collective of Scottish dancers and musicians, perform in Edinburgh and the Highlands this June with the band First Harvest, as part of the Tune Up touring programme.
Dannsa is a dance and music collective which has been blazing a trail for Scottish traditional music and dance for the last four years.
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Dannsa’s performances are a dynamic and energetic brand of step, sword, quadrille and ceilidh dance, and their footwork adds a percussive dimension to the musical accompaniment and song. |
They have toured throughout Scotland in the past, as well as Ireland and Sweden, but this tour will feature their first performances with the band First Harvest, whose piper Iain MacDonald and fiddler Iain MacFarlane are considered to be some of the finest musicians in Scotland.
Dannsa
Frank McConnell was born and brought up in Glasgow. His family has strong Hebridean ties but no interest in the arts. Frank trained as a PE teacher but found an escape route into dance from which he has never returned. In 1994 he moved to the Highlands to work as dancer-in-residence for Ross and Cromarty District Council, and to develop his growing love for Scottish step dancing and Scotland’s earlier dance heritage. In 2000 Frank was awarded a prestigious five-year NESTA Fellowship, and he recently choreographed a new piece, Vinyl Lino, for hip-hop/contemporary dance company Freshmess.
| Like Frank, Caroline Reagh trained as a PE teacher, studying dance, aesthetics and theatre studies at Dunfermline College of Physical Education in Edinburgh. She began ballet lessons at the age of six but took up Highland Dancing when her family moved from Montrose. |
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Caroline received her formal dance training at Grant MacEwan Community College in Edmonton, Canada, and has continued to develop her art through grants from the British Council and Scottish Arts Council which allowed her to study dance in Austria, Jamaica, Cape Breton Island and South Uist. Caroline has worked and performed with actors, sculptors, painters, musicians and writers. She was co-founder/director of PointBlank Dance Theatre, chair of Community Dance Scotland, Director of Scottish Youth Dance Festival and Dance Artist in Residence for Ross and Cromarty Council.
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Sandra Robertson has danced since childhood, and has a teaching qualification in Highland Dancing. She became interested in more traditional styles of dance on witnessing Fearchar MacNeil’s revival of Hebridean dances in Barra, her family home. She has also studied older folk dances and styles with Drumalban’s James MacDonald Reid. Sandra has studied step-dancing in Scotland and Cape Breton, and has performed solo and with groups throughout Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France and Barbados. She has also taught dance extensively throughout Scotland. |
Donal Brown not only dances with Dannsa, but also plays pipe and flute for the group. He began to learn pipes and highland dancing from the age of eight when his family lived in Cawdor. Willie Macdonald was his teacher at the time, and he has also received lessons from Dr Jack Taylor in Aboyne and Richard Anderson in Lossiemouth. Donal has always been inspired by folk bands such as the Bothy Band, Battlefield Band and Lunasa, rather than competitive piping. He is also inspired by all the young like-minded musicians he meets at gigs and sessions, and says that the Sabhal Mor Ostaig summer school has had a great influence on him since he first attended the step-dancing course there when he was about 10. Donal studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow and now performs with Dannsa and the Scottish Step Dance Company.
Fin Moore plays Highland pipes, Border pipes and Scottish small pipes. He played in the Vale of Atholl Juvenile Band and now works in partnership with his father, Hamish, as a successful pipemaker. Fin is gaining a great reputation as a teacher, having taught four summer seasons at the Gaelic College in Cape Breton, as well as the Lowland and Border Pipers' Society annual teaching weekend in Melrose and the Piper Gathering North Hero in Vermont, amongst others. His performances include appearances at the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow, Celtic Colours in Cape Breton, the Edinburgh International Festival and the William Kennedy Piping Festival in Armagh. As well as Dannsa, he has worked with Cape Breton band Slainte Mhath and 2003 Scots Trad Music Award winners Back of the Moon.
Liz MacLean is a Gaelic singer brought up in South Uist. She started Highland Dancing at the age of five. She had an early introduction to puirt-a-beul (‘mouth music’, a style of song for dancing to, where the lyrics are of secondary importance to the rhythm) at school playtime when she practiced dancing with no pipes to accompany her. Since then Liz has developed an interest in guitar, chanter and drama, mainly related to traditional music. She is particularly interested in learning songs from her native South Uist and in the different styles of singing them.
Gabe McVarish is originally from Sacramento Valley in California, and now resides in the Moidart region of the Scottish Highlands. Like Donal Brown, he studied traditional music at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. He has worked in the past with Leo McCann, Drever MacKenzie Band, Black Rose Ceilidh Band, Phamie Gow and Hoogie, and now plays with Dannsa, Daimh, The Claire Mann Band and Hunter, Martin & McVarish.
First Harvest
Iain MacFarlane was born in the Lochaber village of Glenfinnan, where he learned fiddle from his father and Donald Riddell, and bagpipes from Major Evan MacRae. Since his teens, Iain has played in many musical projects in Gaelic drama, contemporary dance, radio and television, as well as with renowned local musicians such a Fearchar MacRae, Angus Grant and Fergie MacDonald. Iain completed an HNC in Gaelic Lanauge in 1996 and went on to obtain a BA in Traditional Music from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. He has since taught at many Feisean, festivals and schools, and has recorded extensively, as well as standing in whenever necessary for Aly Bain of Boys of the Lough. Iain is well known as one of the main players in Blazin’ Fiddles, as well as for his work with First Harvest.
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Piper Iain MacDonald grew up in the small Gaelic-speaking West Highland community of Glenuig, which was accessible only by boat until 1968. His education began as the last and only pupil of the primary school in the community and continued at the Queen Victoria School in Dunblane, where he received most of his piping tuition from Pipe Master John MacKenzie. He also had lessons from Duncan Johnstone and Roderick MacDonald (Ruaridh Roidein) of South Uist. |
Iain won the under-18 competition at the Northern Meeting in Inverness, but chose not to pursue the competition scene. He became a co-founder and actor/musician with Scotland’s first Gaelic Theatre Company, Fir Chils, with which he toured for a number of years. Iain later toured and played with the band Ossian, the Battlefield Band, Wolfstone, 7:84 and Tosg, and has since been producing albums, teaching, and performing live as well as for radio, television and session recordings. He is currently musician-in-residence at Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the Gaelic College on the Isle of Skye.
Ross Martin’s driving yet sensitive guitar playing has made him one of the highest regarded accompanists on the scene today.
| He was immersed in wild west coast dances and sessions in Hebridean and West Highland dance halls from an early age, and has gone on to perform with Tabache, Fred Morrison, Ceolas, Deaf Shepherd and Liz Doherty and is much in demand for session and television work. |
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Kathleen MacInnes hails from South Uist. She was brough up in a Gaelic-speaking home and has enjoyed a career in television as an actor, presenter and singer. She has also worked on the stage, including a part in The Well from the producers of Riverdance, as well as a handful of plays for Tosg. Kathleen has recently been a regular guest on music programmes such as MacTV’s Bard nan Orain, BBC’s award-wining series Aig Cridhe ar Ciuil and singing alongside leading Scottish and Irish singers and musicians in Mike Alexander’s Columba Sessions. She took part in Flower of the West, a concert tribute to Runrig borthers Calum and Ruaraidh MacDonald, and supported Van Morrison at the Blas festival last summer. Kathleen recently released her first solo album Og-mhadainn Shamhraidh (Summer Dawn), which was produced by Iain MacDonald and features musicians Ross Martin (guitar), John McCusker (fiddles), Marc Duff (bouzouki), Donald Shaw (accordion and piano), James MacKintosh (percussion), Neil Johnstone (cello) and Cathy-Ann MacPhee (backing vocals).
Since its inception, Dannsa has toured extensively with its combination of dance and music performance which evokes active audience participation. The collective also runs the annual Strathspey Away Festival in Badenoch & Strathspey, where over 100 people enjoy a long weekend learning Scottish traditional dance and Gaelic music skills.
This month’s Tune Up tour with First Harvest will bring a new dimension to the concert performances and increase the amount and variety of traditional Gaelic music in the programme. The tour came about after First Harvest’s Iain MacDonald and Dannsa’s Frank McConnel spent time performing and teaching together at the annual Ceòlas festival in South Uist. ‘It’s so unusual for Dannsa to be performing in a sit-down concert situation, rather than with the audience joining in the dances,’ says Frank McConnell. ‘Many of our audiences in the past have suggested it – perhaps they wanted a wee rest. But there is such a good feeling about the Tune Up series we hope we can join with our audiences in celebrating the sheer excitement of live music and dance on every night of the tour.’ The programme will feature individual sets from Dannsa and First Harvest, as well as joint sets such as the Spinning Reel dance to Cuigeall na maideann, through a further marathon eight tunes ending in MacArthur’s Road.
When First Harvest released their debut CD in 2005, Frank McConnell thought it was ‘one of the finest sounds I’d ever heard. So to be hitting the road with these major talents and the blinding energy of everyone in Dannsa is just fantastic. And I hope the audience enjoys it every bit as much as we hope to.’
| Fri 9 June 2006 |
North Edinburgh Arts Centre |
| Sat 10 June 2006 |
Craigmonie Centre, Drumnadrochit |
| Sun 11 June 2006 |
Universal Hall, Findhorn |
| Wed 14 June 2006 |
Glenuig Hall |
| Thur 15 June 2006 |
MacPhail Centre, Ullapool |
| Fri 16 June 2006 |
An Lanntair, Stornoway |
| Sat 17 June 2006 |
Ardross Hall, Alness |
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For more information on Tune Up, visit the Tune Up website. | |