Obsdale Primary School, Alness, 17 March 2012

56 Languages refers to the number of languages spoken within an interviewed group of 600 Highland schoolchildren; most of us could name maybe a dozen of them.

It’s food for thought, and plan B have been thinking about it for a while. Over the last six months, their Dance Associates Robbie Synge and Julia McGhee have been working with young people drawn from Obsdale and Altnaharra primary schools and the Youth Group in Alness, and other groups including the ‘Just for Kicks’ dance group and the Moray Women Drummers group.

Participating groups in the 56 Languages project at Obsdale Primary

Last year, plan B’s Shoogle Project gently drew audience members into loose-knit ceilidh-style dancing to Shooglenifty playing live in each venue; all part of their masterplan to get everyone in the Highlands dancing. Synge and McGhee drew on their Shoogling experience to structure 56 Languages, with considerable success.

Some of the groups had more rehearsal time than others, and some probably had had more experience of dance, so the performances were necessarily uneven, but it would be unfair to judge a community performance by professional standards. Every time one of the participants threw inhibition to the winds and just danced their socks off or bounded along like a rabbit on springs, it made the whole thing worthwhile.

The use of recorded music for most of the performances was probably a contributing factor as it’s just so much harder to resist live music, but it would have been impossible to find one band to cover the range, including an infectiously exuberant Bollywood-style number from Alness Youth Group led by Harvinder Kainth and Libby Daye’s lovely solo interpretation of contemporary Nepali dance.

Some of the young dancers showed real promise and it’s to be hoped that more projects like this and an increase in dance experience in schools will encourage more of them to make dance part of their lives.

© Jennie Macfie, 2012

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