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Thank you and goodbye to Marie

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Marie Lewis is leaving SEALL on 17 Deember to start a new adventure as a freelance producer.
Marie joined SEALL in October 2016 and took over as Creative Director from Duncan MacInnes three years later.
Over the past two years, Marie has successfully guided the organisation through what has been a most difficult phase, not only for SEALL but for Scotland’s cultural sector and our communities in particular.
Through her leadership and vision, she has turned challenge into opportunity and, during lockdown, pivoted SEALL’s focus towards how best we could serve the people of the local communities.
Marie said: “In November 2019 I was delighted and excited to be leading SEALL into its 4th decade. Little did I know what was around the corner!”
In 2020, during the first lockdown, the SEALL@Home project was rolled-out across the region to safely deliver performing arts events online to some of the most lonely and isolated members of the communities and offered local musicians a chance to continue showcasing their talents with paid performance opportunities. The Small Halls Festival, celebrating St Andrew’s Day, was delivered entirely online, giving access to one of Scotland’s most cherished winter festivals of traditonal music to not only local audiences but to people from across the world. With creative learning at her heart, she ensured all schoolchildren in Skye and Raasay continue to be exposed to expert tuition from some of Scotland’s most prominent musicians.
In 2021, with Marie at the helm, SEALL took a brave step towards putting on in-person events and produced a safe and highly successful outdoor programme over the summer at Armadale Castle. She has grown the SEALL team, providing a raft of new job and performance opportunities to local people.
This year, SEALL also became one of 26 Scottish cultural organisations to be part of the national Culture Collective, a £6million Scotland-wide initiative enabling creative practitioners, organisations and communities to come together and create a positive difference towards recovery from Covid-19.
Although Marie will not see some of these projects come to fruition, it is her dedication that has laid the foundations for a positive future for culture in Skye, Raasay and Lochalsh.
Marie added: “The past 20 months have been challenging and also incredibly rewarding. I am proud of SEALL’s resilience and the programmes we have created and adapted in extraordinary circumstances.
“I am off to pastures new, leaving SEALL in a great place with a fantastic team, and I very much look forward to seeing what SEALL does in the next decade or two. I would also like to thank everyone who supported me, and who continue to support SEALL’s work.”
Marie’s legacy is an assurance that SEALL has not only survived through adversity but has thrived, with the strength to go forward into the future.
We wish Marie all the very best in anything she turns her hand to and we will all miss her very much.

Small changes

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Owing to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, Mary Macmaster can no longer join our Small Halls musicians this year.

The good news is that the wonderful Duncan Chisholm and Amy Geddes have stepped in to fill the gaps and to ensure that 2021 Small Halls is as special as ever.

Also, not everyone will be able to get to this year’s Big Ceilidh so we have decided to livestream the entire event on YouTube for FREE. On 27 November at 8.30pm, everyone will be able to watch the festival’s highlight event live from Seumas’ Bar, Sligachan, directly from the comfort of their own homes. No need for a ticket. Just click on the link below and join us in some great Highland-style entertainment. It’s not exactly in-person, but it’s most certainly the next best thing.

Watch the Big Ceilidh here

Message from the chair

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Next year SEALL celebrates ten decades of bringing quality performing arts events to rural venues across Skye, Raasay and Lochalsh.
Our AGM takes place on Wednesday 10 November (details to come). In the meantime, we are reaching out to our supporters to gather thoughts and opinions on what you think SEALL should be doing over the next 30 years and beyond.
We are asking people to fill out a short survey which will determine what performing arts on Skye and Lochalsh may look like in the future.
Lindsay Dunbar, SEALL’s chair, explains below.

TAKE THE SURVEY

The first time I ever really visited Skye was in 2000 to start a year at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig. Paying the toll to cross the new bridge and heading over to Sleat after 2 years at Glasgow University felt like a huge leap into the unknown. Although I grew up in Achiltibuie, like many Highlanders, I did wonder how the island’s cultural scene would compare to nights on Sauchiehall Street. I needn’t have worried as the year passed by in a whirl of cèilidh dancing, music sessions and entertainment within the four walls of An t-Sabhal Mhòr.

One memorable event was the Phil Kay comedy night. It was all going well until someone mentioned single-track roads, then it went down-hill, so to speak. However, the reason I remember it so clearly was the unique interaction of a rural community with a touring artist. That is what made it so special.

Over the years I’ve been delighted to return to Skye through my work with the Promoters Arts Network and the Touring Network, where I also connected with Duncan MacInnes. He was a mentor for me and many others in the rural promoting world. Without his leadership I think rural arts would be incredibly different to the scene we know today. Working with Duncan, we brought the Wee Theatre Festival to Skye, producing short site-specific performances across the Island and Raasay, celebrating the diverse and rich history of the Island and its communities. No wonder Skye is now a top cultural destination for visitors to Scotland.

It’s a real honour to support the fantastic team of SEALL, particularly as the organisation heads towards 30 years of events, promoting high-quality work to communities. It’s inspiring, what impact a small rural cultural organisation can achieve.

As a valued supporter of SEALL, your opinion is very important to us. Please would you take the time to fill in a small survey (link below) and feed into our snapshot to understand what the next 30 years might look like, bringing performances to people in the most special of places.Lindsay Dunbar, SEALL, Chair

TAKE THE SURVEY

Culture Collective open call for creative practitioners

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CLICK HERE FOR AN APPLICATION PACK

A new community-focused collaboration between three of Skye’s cultural organisations is creating four new jobs for the area that will help shape the future of local cultural life. 

SEALL is one of 26 national organisations to be part of the Cultural Collective, a £6million nationwide initiative enabling creative practitioners, organisations and communities to come together and create a positive difference towards recovery from Covid-19. 

At local level, SEALL will collaborate with ATLAS Arts and Fèisean nan Gàidheal, to work together with individuals, communities, businesses and organisations across Skye, Raasay and Lochalsh to develop a range of ways to use culture as a powerful tool for creating strong and healthy communities for the future.  

Still in its early stages, the programme will involve six projects, which will be community-led and include the provision of employment opportunities. 

SEALL and Atlas arts are looking for three professional creative practitioners (two performing artists and one visual artist) to join Scottish singer-songwriter, composer and essayist Karine Polwart; playwright Lesley Wilson; and Ratagan-based costume designer and performer Hannah Myers, to take the initiative forward. 

Marie Lewis, SEALL creative director, said: “The successful applicants will work with communities and learn together with a view to establishing a far-reaching culture collective with social change at its heart.” 

“We are now at the stage of calling out for suitable candidates who are happy with an open brief and understand that we are creating new ways of working. The right practitioner must be open and listen to the people they are working with so that it is a true collaboration. They should not have set ideas about objectives or outcomes at this stage. The beauty of the Culture Collective is that we have time for meaningful engagement and development of the project..” 

This month Ruari Gordon from Portree took up the post of project producer. He will co-ordinate the local programme. He said: “I’m delighted to be part of the team working on the Culture Collective project here in Skye, Raasay and Lochalsh. The Culture Collective offers opportunities for communities and groups to work with artists to reimagine and reinvigorate their relationship with arts and culture. 

“As SEALL’s co-ordinator for the project, I’ll be working closely with these practitioners and communities to find new ways of working together, with a view to addressing some of the issues communities, artists and arts organisations have been faced with as a result of the pandemic. 

“I hope that over the coming months the Culture Collective project will shine a light on how arts organisations can better tailor themselves to meet the needs of the communities they serve, as well as breathing some much-needed life back into the sector.” 

The posts, which are fixed term until 30 September 2022, are being advertised in this week’s West Highland Free Press and on Radio Skye.

An application pack is available from HERE.

For further details on the Atlas Arts call-out, visit their website HERE.

Teenagers invited to hang-out with Molly

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SEALL has teamed-up with Atlas Arts to provide a weekly safe space for teenagers to hang out and be creative together.

Molly Scott Danter, who is a dancer, artist and storyteller originally from Edinbane, will be leading an art and dance club for Skye’s 14-17-year-olds.

In line with the Scottish Government’s Covid-19 guidance and legislation, the hang-outs will take place after school from Tuesday, 23 March online and, when permissible, in a range of venues in Portree: outdoors, at the Oyster Table in Bayfield, under canvas, on walks and in large indoor spaces. Molly will lead the weekly hang-out where teenagers can get together safely to create, make and converse.

Molly said: “You don’t need to have an interest in art, dance or music to take part. This is a creative space to hang out and chat. We’ll be meeting first online and then, when possible and safe to do so, meeting together in person in and around Portree in the weeks and months ahead.

“This club is a space to experiment, to make things up, to pretend and reinvent. We might use movement, writing, collage, dance parties, drawing and bookmaking, but it’s up to you. You decide what you’re interested in making, doing and talking about and, together, we’ll try and make it happen.”

Sessions take place every Tuesday after school and the first meeting is online via Zoom at 5pm. Anyone living on Skye or Raasay from the age group is invited to attend and find out more. During this initial meet-up, participants will be able to decide together on times and content of future hang-outs.

Molly, who is 25, found her love for dance when she joined SkyeDance while she was a pupil at Portree High School. After leaving school, she studied dance at London Contemporary Dance School, including a semester at Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance. After graduating Molly worked with Scottish Dance Theatre first as an apprentice dancer then for a short time as guest dancer. Since then, she has worked as a freelance dancer, maker and teacher in the UK and Europe.

As well as dance, Molly also works with text and film and often collaborates with other artists of these and other media. Especially interested in the relationship of self and other, empathy plays a large role in how Molly approaches making, leading and performing work.

Molly expects these highly sociable hang-outs to be led by the participants. She said: “The first part of this idea was to focus on identity and practices around who we are. I realise now that, at school, I was stuck in a relatively rigid environment which was very outcome and product orientated. I was not really learning but memorising and not thinking about the process.

“I really believe creativity can be used as a tool for different forms of expression: for emotional health and wellbeing; the way we see the world; and get a better insight into our relationships with others and with ourselves.

“It is such a complicated time to be a teenager at the moment. Many are suffering from being locked in and missing out on the usual teenage experiences. I hope these meetings will be a release for some of that pressure.”

Molly says the emphasis will be on fun: “With this project, we may be making things all the time, have dance parties, have fun and explore. This is all about who we are, what we can do and what we can achieve together, side by side.

“I hope participants will go away with a sense of empowerment and believing in infinite possibilities of who they can be, what they can do and what this world will be like with them in it.”

The club will run for 21 weeks initially with the possibility of a further extension.

Membership is free and includes an activity pack which will be sent out to participants after sign-up. To register or for an informal chat with Molly to find out more, email molly.thespace@gmail.com by Friday, 12 March.

The funding is part of a targeted fund from Creative Scotland’s Youth Arts Fund, organised by Dingwall-based Fèis Rois. This ambitious project will work across the nine Highland Council Community Planning Partnership areas to support the recovery of youth arts provision in the region as Covid-19 restrictions begin to lift.

New year, new chair

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Lindsay Dunbar has taken over as chair of the board of SEALL from Rosie MacDonald who held the post for the past four years.

Rosie has stepped down owing to increased family commitments.

Originally from Achiltibuie, Lindsay (pictured left) spent a few years in Glasgow before moving back north to Inverness. She has strong connections with Sabhal Mòr Ostaig and knows the Isle of Skye very well.

She said: “Because of my north west roots, I call myself a cultural crofter as I’m used to tending rural, community-led creative projects, whatever the season and whatever needs done.”

Rosie and her husband, whose family are from Tarskavaig, retired to Skye in 2014.

She said: “We joined SEALL as season ticket holders, with almost unlimited access to many fantastic concerts and theatrical events over the years.

“I really admired the aims of the charity, bringing excellent quality cultural events to a local rural community.  I felt the need to support SEALL and give something back in return and so I joined the board in December 2015 and was appointed as chair in 2017, a position from which I stood down in January 2021, due to increased family commitments.”

Rosie has overseen the changes in the charity over her term of office. She said: “SEALL has gradually changed over the years, increasing the range of its reach to include all of Skye, Raasay and Lochalsh.

“In November 2019 the founder and then creative director of Seall, Duncan MacInnes, retired after 28 years and was succeeded by Marie Lewis.

“SEALL now has a permanent staff of four, who are a really hardworking and driven team with great innovative ideas, keeping SEALL’s output fresh, interesting and exciting.

“I’ll miss being a part of it all but it’s time to go and make way for a new chair to govern the charity, together with the board of directors.”

Lindsay has over 15 years’ experience as a strategic leader, delivering cultural events and projects across Scotland. 

She has worked with the Touring Network and has conducted research on behalf of the British Council on Creative Hubs and also for Regional Screen Scotland.  She has also worked as a trainer and facilitator for many creative companies, Seall included.

Rosie added: “Lindsay’s impeccable skills, experience and connections within Scotland’s arts sector will be beneficial to SEALL, as we adapt to the aftermath of Covid restrictions and develop new ways forward.

“I envisage her fitting in effortlessly with the board of directors and the members of staff, reflecting their enthusiasm and passion for promoting cultural events in rural areas of Skye, Raasay and Lochalsh.  I wish her great success as chair and hope that our paths may cross again at a live SEALL event sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Lindsay will take up her new role in February. She said: “I’m looking forward to singing the praises of the organisation far and wide. I’m also interested in how we engage meaningfully with audiences, bringing arts and communities together to access high-quality performance or opportunities to participate.”

“There is already a great team in place, with an exciting vision, taking lead from the community.

“I’ll facilitate those discussions and support them every step of the way. SEALL has an exceptional reputation not only in Scotland but internationally as well, it’s an honour to work with the team, respecting the heritage and looking forward to the future.”