Scottish Step Dance Company - Sole Music

(August 2001) 14 tracks: High Road * Errogie * Alisons Solo * Tacsi * Clan Beag * Thig Am Bata * Waterloo * Johns Solo * Seinn O * Nightmare * Gloomy * Angus G * Sgathach * Finale.

Scottish traditional music with revivalist footwork! Scottish and Cape Breton stepdancing styles with full volume footwork to music that segues from traditional through folk-funk to blues and Gaelic syncopation!

This company are an inventive and dynamic group, committed to promotion, performance and re-integration of Scottish stepdance into the current traditional music scene in Scotland. Stepdance is an old Scottish percussive danceform which shares its roots with Irish hard shoe dancing (pre-competition). After the clearances it had all but vanished in Scotland until recent years when our links with Cape Breton began to be re-established.

The music is very strongly centred around the west coast traditions of gaelic song, piping and fiddle playing, with the majority of the band coming from the Scottish Highlands. There's a bit of everything from our tradition on this album - from tunes and songs that are hundreds of years old, to the modern tunes being played by the young folk!

The dance pieces vary from traditional and modern solos, to routines with up to four dancers. All of the dancers in this group are also musicians, and/or singers, and place great importance on following the rhythms of the tunes and accompaniments - stepdance is as much percussion as it is a form of dance.

The Scottish Stepdance Company are: Keri (stepdance, low whistle), Adam Sutherland (fiddle), John Sikorski (stepdance, double bass), Sandra MacKay (Gaelic song, whistle), Donal Brown (stepdance, Scottish smallpipes, flute), Alison MacLeod (stepdance) and Kevin Mackenzie (guitar).