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.
Board
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Dave
David Francis is a songwriter, lyricist, storyteller, guitarist, and dance-caller. He recently retired as Director of Scotland’s network of traditional music organisations, the Traditional Music Forum.
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Dougie
Dougie Pincock started his musical career as a Highland piper at primary school in Barrhead, near Glasgow, in 1970. After a moderately successful career in juvenile solo piping competitions, and a spell with the Neilston and District Pipe Band, he became a member of the Glasgow folk group Kentigern.
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Mairi
A fluent Gaelic speaker, Mairi Kidd graduated with a First in Celtic Studies from the University of Edinburgh. Her novel The Specimens - a retelling of the 1828 crimes of Burke and Hare - was Waterstones Scottish Book of the Month. Her latest novel Poor Creatures, an immersive reimagining of the life of the young Mary Shelley, was published in 2025.