YTV Touring Group Goes to Cape Breton!
The Touring Group had just returned from the April 21-30th cultural travel tour to Cape Breton, a whirlwind of performances, workshops, and visits with many opportunities to engage with and be inspired by Cape Breton's cultural and language communities.
On the road!
The Touring Group had just returned from the April 21-30th cultural travel tour to Cape Breton, a whirlwind of performances, workshops, and visits with many opportunities to engage with and be inspired by Cape Breton's cultural and language communities.
The Touring Group visited the Celtic Music Interpretive Centre to hear Rodney MacDonald play and experienced an impromptu square set; danced at the Family Dance at the Whycocomagh Waterfront Centre with many young folks from the local area; learned about the history of the Gaels migration to Cape Breton and sang a milling song at the Highland Village; took pictures at the big fiddle in Sydney; saw CBFM that features Cape Breton music; and toured two university campuses, Cape Breton University and Beinn Mhàbu.
On the stage!
Performances began on Sunday April 22nd and ran through Friday, April 28th at a variety of venues beginning with the online program Tunes & Wooden Spoons with Mary Janet MacDonald, continuing with evening concerts at Beinn Mhàbu in Mabou, the Highland Village in Iona, the Colaisde na Gàidhlig | Gaelic College Wednesday Night Ceilidh with Andrea Beaton and Kimberly Fraser in St Anns, at École NDA with Swing du Suête and Christine Doucet in Chéticamp, and wrapping up with a show at the Old Triangle Irish Ale House with Morgan Toney, Kimberly Fraser, and NSCC Marconi Music Arts students in Sydney.
Tunes & Wooden Spoons with Mary Janet MacDonald
Touring Group members say:
“I enjoyed performing at Mary Janet's house for Tunes and Wooden Spoons. She made great food and we performed for her facebook show.” and “Playing for the Facebook thing was fun, because 1: Mary Janet was awesome and 2: it was a very unique performance out of all the ones we had.”
“Overall, my favorite performance was our last one at the Old Triangle Pub. We were not in our normal arrangement but being crowded together was part of the fun of it. It was special when we started singing and the whole pub got quiet to listen. It was also cool when a diner got up and started step-dancing.”
In the schools!
The Touring Group also visited and performed at schools as well: the Inverness Education Centre, Dalbrae Academy, the Whycocomagh Education Centre, the Rankin School, and École NDA. There was dancing of some kind at most of these visits - square sets and circle dances, elementary-school kids showing their steps, and the Highland Cow mascot even joined in! Informal encounters with local students, which began at the Whycocomagh Family Dance, continued at school with Joanne Rankin MacIntyre’s Gaelic students and at the Gaelic College, with Colin MacDonald’s Na Gaisgich students.
Touring Group members say:
“The school performances were so much fun, seeing all of the little kids dancing. Another really memorable experience was going out on the beach and playing frisbee as well as playing tunes on the bus.”
“We had a chance to meet high school students at one of the schools we performed at as well as the square dance we attended. Some of these same students came to some of our following shows on the island.”
Performing on the John Morris Rankin stage
In workshops!
Workshops offered the opportunity to learn from Cape Breton master artists, including Joanne Rankin MacIntyre (Eòsag Nic Fhraing), Kenneth MacKenzie, Margie Beaton, Colin MacDonald, Otis Tomas Robert Deveaux, Kyle & Sheumas MacNeil, Kimberly Fraser, and Morgan Toney. These workshops represented all three of the prominent language and cultural communities of Cape Breton, the Gaels, the Acadians, and the Mi’kmaq.
Touring Group members say:
“We had many workshops with master artists in Cape Breton. I especially enjoyed meeting and learning traditional Cape Breton step dance from Margie Beaton. She was a great dancer and teacher but also a lovely person with lots of knowledge to share about Cape Breton.”
“I always love taking workshops from Kenneth McKenzie, I really like his teaching style and the tunes that he chooses to teach. I also had a lot of fun at Otis's workshop, hearing about how he made different instruments and the tunes that he wrote and the pictures of the scraps that he made into art.”
“It was inspiring to see the young kids already knowing how to dance. Seeing Otis Tomas's work was also inspiring. The instruments he made were beautiful, and the tune he taught us was different from other tunes I've learned.”
In the community!
The Touring Group also brought music to Le Foyer Pere Fiset, a retirement community in Chéticamp and recorded Andrea Beaton’s new tune, Koady’s Inspiration written for Koady Chaisson, at the CBU recording studio with Christopher Jones. Other highlights included a video performance & interview with CTV News; watching the bus jam viral video Andrea Beaton took air in the news while having dinner at her house; noticing the emotional responses to the Gaelic song “O, Teannaibh Dlùth is Togaibh Fonn” which many recalled from their childhoods; and the rocking bus jams!
Touring Group members say:
“We performed at a nursing home and this was meaningful because it was the first time the people there had a performance in 3 or so years because of covid. We could see they really enjoyed it. There were people who knew the words to our Gaelic song, and also some who did some foot percussion.”
In addition to the performances, school visits, workshops, language learning, dancing, and jamming, the Touring Group also took time to get outside and appreciate the beauty of Cape Breton, from a walk among the pines to the ocean on the Judique Flyer Trail, to a misty outing to Port Hood Provincial Park, lots of frisbee, and a magical few minutes witnessing the Northern Lights from the Colaisde na Gàidhlig | Gaelic College.
Touring Group members say:
“Getting to know the people in the group on the tour and having jokes the group shares from the tour. Our bus driver Walter was also a great part of the tour. The music in the group is fun and it is cool to see it evolve and become tight and clean by the end of the tour. The recording studio was neat. We got to learn and see so many things over the course of 10 days.”
“I loved exploring the Island of Cape Breton and getting to meet so many lovely people there. I also loved learning from our artist leaders. It was also lovely being around like-minded people my age who wanted to learn music, ride around in a bus and have a fabulous time.”
Thank you!
The Touring Group is grateful to everyone who made this season possible, including Artist Leaders Dominique Dodge and Andrea Beaton; Youth Artist Leaders Owen Kennedy and Hadley Stockwell; Young Tradition Vermont Founder Mark Sustic, Vermont Folklife YTV Director Ian Drury, and YTV Touring Group Manager Christina Kennedy; the many welcoming hosts and inspiring mentors in Cape Breton; our enthusiastic audiences with their hoots & hollers; our generous donors, sponsors, and folks who rode on the bus with us virtually; and the families, friends, and communities that encouraged and supported the Touring Group members this season!
Night on the tour bus