Deiseil Airson Dannsa : Ready To Dance
Deiseil Airson Dannsa was founded in 2024 by Alison Carlyle and Amy Geddes to promote awareness of and participation in stepdance, Scotland’s indigenous percussive dance tradition. Our show Deiseil: Dancing in Time, was created in 2025 and sold-out at the Edinburgh Fringe.
deiseil /dʲeʃal(sounds like jay-shal)
Deiseil Airson Dannsa is Scottish Gaelic for “Ready to Dance”. Stepdance was historically an important part of Gaelic culture, but became virtually unknown in Scotland due to cultural suppression, the Highland Clearances, and evolution into Highland dance and Scottish country dance. It was preserved by Scottish emigrants to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and we learned from their descendants bringing the dance back to Scotland in the 1990s.
blether with us!
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“The most joyful show I’ve seen… it tells an important story with the lightest of touches and doesn’t put a foot wrong.”