Duirinish Media & Culture Club present The St Kilda Tapes, featuring David Allison and Maeve Mackinnon, at Dunvegan Community Hall, Isle of Skye, on Thursday 19 May 2011 at 8pm.

With archive film and live music performed on guitar, zither, ukulele and sampler, The St Kilda Tapes explores the themes of emmigration and home through the experiences, thoughts and voice of Norman Gillies.

Both Norman and The St Kilda Tapes feature in the documentary “An t-Hiortach” (“The St Kildan”) broadcast on BBC2 and BBC Alba in 2009, in which Norman returns to his island home of St Kilda from which he was evacuated in 1930 aged just five.

When you are forced or you choose to leave your home where does your journey stop? How do you know when you’ve arrived at your ultimate destination, and how do you balance what you have left behind with what you discover on your way?

“The St Kilda Tapes” features two Scottish Screen Archive films, (“St. Kilda – Britain’s Loneliest Isle” and “A New Way to a New World”), as well as some new specially created video, and a few other multimedia surprises.

As well as a sell out at the London’s Barbican Cinema, the Filmhouse, Edinburgh, and the GFT in Glasgow, The St Kilda Tapes also toured successfully in Ireland and Canada.

Celtic Connection Vancouver described the show as “deeply moving” with the “excellent music of David Allison”. David manages to mix together journalism, video, cinematic soundscapes and music to create a show of depth, emotion and humour.

“David Allison sits like some Hebridean captain at the bridge of his multi-media creation pressing pedals in his stocking feet, mixing and layering, even playing brushes on the back of his guitar, while evocative island images flicker behind him”. Norman Bissell, Hi-Arts

Source: Duirinish Media & Culture Club