Tales from the Big Apple

ALISON BELL and FIONA MACKENZIE report from the Highland 2007 team’s trip to New York for Tartan Week
 

ESTABLISHED AROUND eight years ago, Tartan Week has developed to be an event centred on a Scottish Village created by VisitScotland within a part of Grand Central railway station in Manhattan.

This year ten exhibitors made up the Scottish Village. As well as having a specific area within the Village, Highland 2007 was the overall brand, part of a package of £2million worth of ‘in-kind’ support for the project from VisitScotland.

Conscious that much of our culture is best sampled to be appreciated, Highland 2007 jumped at the chance to bring performers from the Highlands to the New York stage.

Adding to a programme featuring the Peatbog Faeries and the Finlay Macdonald Band, the Highland 2007 presence at Tartan Week included Mod Gold medallist Fiona Mackenzie, former Silver medallist Morven MacLeod, clarsach player Katie Mackenzie and dancer Kirsty McConnell.

Also joining the programme for the Glenfiddich stage in the Scottish Village was The Gentleman’s Tea Party, a group formed by students from the National Centre of Excellence for Traditional Music, delighting audiences on a daily basis with their performances.

One lady even wanted to know if that was ‘Elvish I was singing, like in Lord of the Rings’!

Joining the Highland 2007 exhibition area were representatives from The National Trust for Scotland, providing in-depth knowledge of the new visitor centre and re-dedication of Culloden Battlefield planned for completion in 2007.

By featuring one of the key capital projects for Highland 2007, and one with particular resonance for the North American market, Highland 2007 was able to strengthen the message to potential visitors – the Highlands is a great place to live and to visit – and if you are thinking of visiting soon, book for 2007!

The National Museum of Scotland supported a display of artefacts representing the National Exhibition, ‘Fonn ‘s Duthchas’, one of the major events taking place in 2007.

Similarly the Camanachd Cup not only drew attention to this uniquely Scottish sport, but put the spotlight on the 100th challenge for the trophy taking place next year as part of the Highland 2007 programme.

On the ground information was available to Grand Central commuters from Camanachd Association representative, Hugh Dan MacLennan, with some even managing a come and try session within the confines of the village.
 
Even arriving in Manhattan late at night we were able to see the Tartan Week banners hanging from lampposts in the area immediately around Grand Central Terminal. Newspapers and magazines carried features about this growing celebration of all things Scottish.

Raising the profile of the Highlands and our culture, Highland performers were featured in many of the media opportunities arising during the eight days of Tartan Week, including an early morning appearance on a New York television breakfast show.

An exhibition of Highland arts and crafts generated enormous interest on the Highland 2007 stand. With silver, leather and textiles on display, visitors were able to view the contemporary designs of traditional items such as kilt pins and sporrans, as well as tumble cups, jewellery and scarves.

Alongside the events on the main stage in the Scottish village, a diverse programme of other activities took place at various venues during Tartan Week. Organised by a range of independent promoters and companies, a Highland 2007 presence at these events contributed to raising the profile of the Highlands with an element of the North American market already sympathetic to our culture.

And so back to the Highlands, and a sense of reality gradually returns after the bustle of a week in one of the world’s biggest cities. Without having experienced Tartan Week, it is difficult to comprehend the scale of this festival and the potential public relations and marketing opportunities it offers.

However, with North America being a key overseas market for Scotland – and even more so for the Highlands & Islands – a presence at Tartan Week certainly offers exposure to an important audience sector. By enticing visitors north from international arrival points in the central belt, it is possible for the Highlands to tap into a market keen to explore new and exciting destinations.

Tartan Week is one way to raise the profile of the unique experience awaiting visitors if they venture north from the beaten track and cross the Highland line.

Tartan Week from the Performers Point of View

The vaulted ceiling of Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Station, New York, presented quite a challenge to us performers at Tartan Week 2006, writes Fiona MacKenzie, but one which we were more than happy to try and cope with.

Having been invited to represent Highland 2007 at Tartan Week, the band of intrepid Traditional Musicians and dancers had a very busy but very rewarding 10 days ahead of us when we set out from Dalcross airport. Our merry troupe consisted of myself as Gaelic singer; Katie Mackenzie, clàrsach player and singer’ Morven Macleod, Gaelic singer and member of the Highland 2007 team; Sara Ann Cull, Highland Dancer’ and Kirsty McConnell, Highland and Hebridean Step Dancer.

Both Katie and Sara are students on the Traditional Music degree course at the RSAMD, and Kirsty is in her final year at Dingwall Academy. VisitScotland arranged an intensive performance schedule for us, with at least two performances a day for most of us, interspersed with other demonstrations such as a cooperage demo, cookery, a fashion show, drama, and performances from the Finlay Macdonald Band and the Peatbog Faeries. Highland 2007 also had a DVD on loop showcasing 2007, when live events were not happening on stage.
 
Our main problems were ones which we wrestled with for several weeks before our departure – namely, that of travelling with expensive instruments such as a clàrsach, and also the fruitless search for somebody in New York willing to lend us two sets of broadswords for the sword dance!

However, ingenious Highlanders that they are, the girls improvised with some beautiful Anta silk tartan scarves and created a new setting of the traditional sword dance [scarf dance doesn’t have quite the same ring, though – ed.] Oh, and the clàrsach arrived on both sides of the Atlantic in one piece, despite attracting the suspicion of airport security guards.

Our hotel, The Roosevelt, was located very close to Grand Central Station which made life with a clàrsach very much easier. The Station itself is an amazing piece of architecture, and was a wonderful backdrop to the Scottish Village, which was itself a most impressive setup.

There a great ‘buzz’ around the station from people being aware that ‘something’ was happening up in Vanderbilt and coming on up to see what it was. The streets around the Station were ablaze with large banners proclaiming ‘Tartan Week’, and people were genuinely thrilled to see the Scots, especially those in kilts!

The Glenfiddich Stage provided a very comfortable performing space and was well looked after by the stage manager and sound crew. We had a few sound problems at the opening, largely due to the number of people in the audience, and only those at the front of the stage area were really able to hear the music and drama. Even Donald Trumps’ speech got a bit lost somewhere away up in the Gods of the Hall!

However, these problems were rectified the next day, and we all developed very good working relationships with the crew, who had to cope with the idiosyncrasies of items such as traditional unaccompanied Gaelic song, to clàrsach and fiddle, step dance and puirt a beul, Celtic ’rock’ or ‘funk’, Highland pipes, as well as the complications of fixing up a full blown cookery counter several times a day.

We were well looked after by our compere Robbie Mack, whose repertoire of patter never ceased to amaze us! He was also very adept at keeping the schedule running to time and not panicking when one of the performers did not turn up till the very last minute before their ‘slot’.

We found the generally very large audiences very receptive to all the music, and many people returned day after day to catch their favourites. One lady even wanted to know if that was ‘Elvish I was singing, like in Lord of the Rings’!

Many people went away with business cards and CDs, desperate to find out more about our musical heritage and its place in our culture today. Of course, all the tartan went down very well too – especially the fact that its use could be quite contemporary, not always full blown kilt outfits.

All the dancing, Highland and step, danced to puirt a beul (mouth music), proved a great audience draw and we answered many questions on all the music, every day.

Having an intensive performance schedule meant that there was not a lot of time for sight seeing – we might be on at 11.30 in the morning then back again at 3 pm, maybe with an evening performance somewhere too, but we were able to squeeze in a few sights. Rehearsals also had to be fitted in around that too. And we had to catch some of the Peatbogs and Finlay’s performances too of course – how could we not!

We had a couple of very early starts i.e. 5am, when we were asked to appear on Breakfast TV for Fox 5 and CBS. I gave a Gaelic lesson to the American equivalent of Fiona Phillips on GMTV, and the dancers taught her a Fling too. We endured 2 hours of bitterly cold wind and rain on 5th Avenue when appearing on the CBS programme, but it was great to see the Saltires and Pipes so much in evidence that morning, on the corner of Central Park. The colour of the dancers legs matched the blue of the Saltires!

The Parade on the Saturday was a sight to see, if hampered by the totally atrocious weather – we had the whole gamut of weather thrown at us over the ten days, from blazing heat to snow and hail – but the parade was freezing wet!! None the less, it was an experience never to be forgotten – when else will we be able to say we have stopped the traffic on Avenue of the Americas and marched up the middle of Manhattan?

We were struck by the number of small Saltires and the many Canadian flags being held aloft by bystanders out to cheer us on. We all did feel truly proud to be Scots on that day.

What of all the memories we have will be the most striking to us as performers? Probably what will remain longest is the realisation that we may tend to take our music for granted – forgetting how special it is and how it affects people.

Because it is around us so much of our lives, the pipes, the music, the language, the dance, we tend to think of it as ‘normal’- but being in New York made us remember that we do hold something very precious in being Highlanders, something which other people want to be part of, something which people want to experience.

Many of those people we spoke to, are now coming to Scotland, not just for the scenery and castles but because of the music and song. One African woman, a singer on Broadway, told me that she had never heard anything like Gaelic song before in her life, and found it a deeply touching experience, one which she felt a deep connection with, in the rhythms and sentiments of the songs.

In a city which has seen much pain and hardship in recent years, it is good to feel that we, “The Best Small Country in the World”, can still have an effect on peoples lives and make them feel that we are all ‘the same’.

Being a Gaelic singer at Tartan Week was a great privilege for me, and the girls have gone away with many memories and some very valuable performing experience too. It may have been an exhausting and exciting 10 days but they were days which we will never forget.

© Alison Bell and Fiona MacKenzie, 2006