I’m from everywhere I’ve ever been
deiseil /dʲeʃal (sounds like jay-shal)
Deiseil Airson Dannsa (Scottish Gaelic for “Ready to Dance”) is a new organisation led by Amy Geddes and Alison Carlyle, which aims to promote awareness of and participation in stepdance, Scotland’s indigenous percussive dance tradition.
Alison Carlyle and Amy Geddes first worked together in 1998 as founding members of pioneering group The Scottish Stepdance Company. Its groundbreaking and critically acclaimed work explored the relationship between music, dance and Gaelic song, and performed stepdance as an indigenous percussive artform. Director Gerry Mulgrew joined the company in 2025 as a co-creator of Deiseil: Dancing in Time.
Tha mi deiseil an aw’!
Meet The Team
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Alison Carlyle
Co-Founder & Artistic Director
Alison has been performing Scottish stepdance since 1998, after learning from leading Cape Breton dancers as it was reintroduced to Scotland in the mid 1990’s.She was a founding member of pioneering group The Scottish Stepdance Company, whose ground-breaking work in exploring the relationship between music, dance and Gaelic song, and presenting the performance of stepdance, was critically acclaimed…
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Amy Geddes
Co-Founder & Music Director
Musician & educator Amy Geddes is widely recognised as a leading light in the world of contemporary Scottish Fiddle. Growing up in Galloway Amy immersed herself in traditional music, song and dance, but has gone on to forge a career exploring musical genres whilst remaining true to her roots… -

Ruby Zajac
Producer
Ruby is a workshop facilitator, fundraiser and producer with a background working with children & families. She has had an eclectic career so far including co-founding the FLAPS project which provides emotional welfare at music festivals, producing family projects for Licketyspit Theatre Company, and working for a member of the Scottish Parliament. -

Rufus Elliot
Technician
Rufus Isabel Elliot is a composer and sound and lighting technician living in Skye.Rufus has written funerary music for doomed spaceships and orchestral music about rotting seaweed. It cares about honesty and openness. Its work is concerned with testimony, the conditions in which one speaks out, and how those stories are passed on.
“Joyous and educational - such an untold Scottish story. This deserves a wider audience!”