Overview
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Surveying a Resurgent Scene
ROBERT LIVINGSTON looks at the broad picture of arts activity in the Highlands & Islands |
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IN 2007 Scotland celebrated a ‘year of Highland culture’, highlighting the fact that the Highlands and Islands, one of the most sparsely populated areas in Europe, has had a huge and lasting cultural impact internationally, and that ‘Highland culture’ is even more vibrant and energetic now than in the past.
Of course, today, the ‘Highlands and Islands’ is really an artificial construct, defined more by administrative boundaries than by a unified history or single culture. For the Hebrides in the West are the heartland of Gaelic culture, where the ancient language of Scotland can be heard in daily use; the Northern isles of Orkney and Shetland, and the northernmost mainland region, Caithness, retain a strong Norse identity, and in Moray there’s a rich strand of ‘Doric’, the Scottish dialect of the North-East of Scotland.
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 | | Peatbog Faeries at Tartan Heart 2007 (photo - Jennie Macfie). |
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Artificial though the boundaries may be, the area is nonetheless home to many of Scotland’s most familiar and potent icons: Loch Ness, tartan, the kilt, Glencoe, whisky, Culloden, The Stag at Bay, bagpipes, Iona, castles, lochs, mountains, and glens. It was James Macpherson, himself a Highlander born and bred – from Balavil in Strathspey, south of Inverness – who began the international craze for things Highland back in the 18th century, with the publication of his epic poems that claimed to be translations from the original Gaelic of the mythic poet Ossian.
From Napoleon to Mendelssohn and from the painter Ingres to the poet Pushkin, all Europe was inspired by the heroic tales of Ossian, even though Dr Johnson was among the first to spot that Macpherson’s work was a monumental hoax, pieced together from fragments of oral poetry and old tales, and not simply an English version of some lost Gaelic Homer.
Sir Walter Scott, of course, kept up the momentum with his thrilling poems and novels, and Queen Victoria’s adoption of Balmoral as her second home put a royal stamp on the merits of all things Highland. But within the Highlands and Islands it was a different story, and the aftermath of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s failed Jacobite invasion in 1745, and later the introduction of national Education Acts in the 19th century, did much to suppress or destroy the indigenous language and culture. Fortunately these efforts were not wholly effective, and the last thirty years have seen a huge and positive resurgence in the Gaelic language, music, dance and storytelling.
Much of this resurgence is due to the strenuous efforts of local communities, and of a number of key groups. The Royal National Mod, for example, kept the flame burning for Gaelic language and music throughout the last century, and it is still held annually, in a different Scottish town each year, as the culmination of a host of local ‘mods’. More recently the ‘Feisean’ movement (Gaelic for ‘festivals’) has provided quality tuition on all aspects of Gaelic music and culture for thousands of children, in their own communities. Similar initiatives have had an equally significant impact on the survival of traditional music in the Northern Isles and North-East Scotland.
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 | | Outdoor learning at the Fèis in Tiree (photo - Fèisean nan Gàidheal). |
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But of course the cultural history of the Highlands and Islands reaches far back beyond the cataclysm of ‘the ‘45’. In fact, the area can fairly claim to be the cradle of much of the mix that makes up the Scottish nation. In many of the islands and the coastal areas are some of the oldest and most imposing relics of the early inhabitants of Britain, from the glen of Kilmartin, in Argyll, to the great monument of Callanish in Lewis, and the huge spread of Neolithic monuments in the far north.
The hill of Dunadd, in Argyll, was the stronghold of the first true kings of Scotland, as Iona Abbey was the fount of Christianity. Macbeth was ‘mormaer’ (earl) of Moray before he became King of Scotland, and on a tiny island in the loch of Finlaggan, on Islay, the parliaments and courts of the Lords of the Isles were held for many centuries.
So it was in the last century that the true cultural richness of the Highlands and Islands began to be appreciated. To take just one example, many of the most important writers of 20th century Scotland came from, and wrote about, a Highland background: Neil Gunn from Caithness; Sorley Maclean from Skye, Ian Crichton Smith from Lewis, and Eric Linklater and George Mackay Brown from Orkney. That legacy is very much alive today, with a host of fine writers working in the area – poets and playwrights, novelists and children’s writers – and a network of book festivals from Nairn to Stornoway and Ullapool to Orkney.
Those book festivals make up just a small part of the ever-growing tapestry of over 70 arts festivals, large and small, presented throughout the year and across the Highlands and Islands. From some of the longest-established – the Shetland Folk Festival, Orkney’s St Magnus Festival and the Nairn Jazz Festival – to bold newcomers such as the Cowal Walking and Arts Festival, and Moray Spirit of Brass, these festivals offer an enormous variety of opportunities to experience high quality arts events in unique locations.
Not surprisingly, music dominates the festival scene. Probably the best way to experience the traditional music of the area is through Blas, a region-wide celebration of Gaelic music that takes place in September, but all through the summer there are local ‘ceilidh trails’ in which some of the region’s finest young musicians perform in hotels, restaurants and village halls.
The world of traditional music throughout the Highlands and Islands has never been so confident, or so easy to find, but the contemporary scene is equally lively, with a number of major festivals that have become unmissable dates on the Scottish rock calendar, including Rock Ness, Tartan Heart, and the Hebridean Celtic Festival. Those who know the Outer Hebrides only through the prism of films like Whisky Galore would be astonished to find that Stornoway has one of the most active rock scenes in the country, with an apparently endless stream of young bands making their mark on the national and international stage.
Equally surprising to many would be the presence in Inverness of the Ironworks, possibly the largest and finest specially-built live music venue in Scotland, and already a regular date on many touring circuits. But it’s just one of an ever-growing range of fine venues for the arts throughout the Highlands and Islands. Also in Inverness, the Eden Court Theatre reopened in 2007 as the largest single arts centre in Scotland with two theatres, two cinemas, and a range of workshops spaces and meeting rooms.
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Eden Court is, however, only the latest of such major venues to be rebuilt, following the opening of the new home for An Lanntair Arts Centre in Stornoway, and a greatly enlarged Pier Arts Centre in Stromness on Orkney. In the last decade the whole region has benefited from many fine local venues, with new or rebuilt village halls and community centres, and a network of community schools.
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 | | Pier Arts Centre by night (photo -Pier Arts Centre). |
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Perhaps the greatest area of growth has been in the visual arts. The HI~Arts Gallery Guide lists almost 180 individual galleries and artists studios, almost twice as many as in the first version of the Guide back in 1999. The islands are particularly rich in arts centres funded by the Scottish Arts Council: An Tobar on Mull, Taigh Chearsabhagh on North Uist, An Lanntair on Lewis, the Pier on Orkney and the Bonhoga Gallery on Shetland. Just last year the Moray Arts Centre opened in Findhorn, at the same time as the neighbouring Moray College became Scotland’s fifth art school, with the formal approval of a four-year degree course.
Many artists in the area naturally base their work on the rich and diverse landscapes of the Highlands and Islands, but many are also pushing at the boundaries of visual arts practice, experimenting with new forms and new technologies. A comprehensive public art programme is changing the face of Inverness, and similarly ambitious projects have taken place in the Cairngorms, south Skye, and the Outer Hebrides. Ambitious projects such as NVA’s ‘The Storr: Unfolding Landscape’ in north Skye in 2005 and ‘Half Life’ in Argyll in 2007, and the Forestry Commission’s ‘Between Two Worlds’ in Badenoch in 2007, have demonstrated powerfully the deep links between landscape and culture.
The dance and drama sector is also burgeoning. Over 80 local promoters – the vast bulk of them wholly voluntary – make up the Promoters Arts Network, and bring the highest quality of touring performances to their local communities. The Highlands and Islands Theatre Network is made up of some 28 professional drama and dance companies, creating a huge variety of work, from bilingual Gaelic/English theatre in Stornoway, through work with video and animation in Easter Ross, to one of Scotland’s longest established and busiest companies, Mull Theatre in Tobermory.
Most people form their first images of the Highlands and Islands through the movies, whether through classics such as I know where I’m going or Local Hero, or more recent successes such as Rob Roy or The Water Horse. But it’s only in the last few years that many communities in the region have themselves had access to a quality cinema experience, with new cinema venues opening in Portree, Stornoway, Thurso, Inverness, and Kirkwall, while HI~Arts’ own mobile cinema, the Screen Machine, serves a host of smaller communities throughout the North and West.
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 | | Mull Theatre's tour crew brave the elements with the Brightwater set on Easdale Island (photo - Mull Theatre). |
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One reason for declaring 2007 ‘the year that Scotland celebrates Highland culture’ was the extent to which that culture now looks beyond the region’s boundaries. The annual ‘Go North’ showcase of new music talent, originally launched by HI~Arts, now takes Highland musicians to sister events as far away as Moscow and the Basque region. In 2007 Inverness band Jyrojets were the only Scottish band on the Britbus tour of the US. In that same year Dogstar Theatre Company toured to the Ukraine, Charioteer Theatre Company visited Italy, and Theatre Hebrides toured to Wales and Ireland. Highlands and Islands writers were represented at the Ouessant Festival of Island Literature, and promoted at the Tokyo Book Fair. An increasing range of residency and exchange programmes welcome international artists to fine venues such as the Cromarty Stables and the Booth in Scalloway in Shetland, or mix local and international artists in unique locations such as Isle Martin, off Ullapool.
Where next, then, following this ‘Year of Highland Culture’? There are still big plans under way for new venues – a cinema and music complex for Shetland, a new gallery and museum for Inverness – and in 2008 both Mull Theatre and Timespan Heritage Centre in Helmsdale will open new or greatly refurbished buildings. There’s still unfinished business to provide suitable arts facilities for areas such as Caithness, Lochaber and Argyll.
At the same time, there seems to be an encouraging trend for more and more new graduates in the arts to move back to the area to work, or indeed to seek their training through the increasing number of arts courses being developed by the University of the Highlands and Islands Millennium Institute. A look into a crystal ball might reveal: ever more opportunities to engage with Gaelic language and culture; an increasing international profile; a growing recognition in the rest of Scotland that culture in the Highlands and Islands is not just alive and well but flourishing.
Here, through Northings and the other services offered by the HI~Arts website, you can find out much more about what’s going on, and about the deeper background, and through our sister organisation, thebooth, you can book online for many events throughout the region.
Robert Livingston
Director, HI~Arts
February 2008
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