Join us once again (after so long…) at the Blue Lamp for an extravaganza of North-East words, music and film with writers, performers and musicians, featuring Shane Strachan, Sheena Blackhall, Noon Salah Eldin, Affa Fine, SC&T Youth and Iona Fyfe. Doors open at 7.30pm for an 8pm start. 

  

Shane Strachan is a writer and performer based in Aberdeen. Recent projects include the exhibition, film and podcast The Bill Gibb Line (Look Again, Aberdeen Art Gallery), theatre-show The Shelter (National Theatre of Scotland) and Scots translations for Itchy Coo’s Hans Christian Andersen and Grimm fairy tale collections. He holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Aberdeen for a collection of stories which have been published widely and that form the Orra Though It Be podcast supported by The Doric Board.  

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Young film-maker Anais Fourrier has made four Storytelling & Place short films featuring local tale-spinners and some weel kent locations, especially for WayWORD 2021. The first of these, starring North-East Makar Sheena Blackhall, will be premiered this evening, with screenings of three others to follow throughout the festival. Anais and Sheena will be there to answer your questions.   

 

Noon Salah Eldin is a spoken word artist, activist and (last but not least) medic originally from Sudan. She now lives in rural Aberdeenshire and performs often in Aberdeen. Her work has appeared on the Leopard Arts culture site and she writes in Arabic as well as English.  

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Affa Fine. Twa loons fae the Garioch area. Famed for taking bothy ballads tae new audiences and weel kent for playin wi local lore tae mak fowk laugh. 

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SC&T Youth (Scottish Culture & Traditions) Youth provides exciting, high-quality online opportunities for young people interested in Scottish traditional music. The majority of their events are completely free to make them accessible to every young person. Some of these talented young people and their wonderful tutors will be giving a performance as part of North East Voices at The Blue Lamp.

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Winner of Scots Singer of the Year at the MG ALBA Scots Trad Music Awards 2018, Aberdeenshire singer Iona Fyfe has been described as “one of the best Scotland has to offer” (Global Music). In 2019, she won "Young Scots Speaker o the Year" at the inaugural Scots Language Awards, winning "Scots Performer o the Year" in the 2020 Awards. She regularly performs songs in Doric/North-East Scots, translates songs from English to Scots and has advocated for official recognition of the Scots language, successfully petitioning Spotify to add Scots to their list of languages. Her albums include East, Away From My Window and Dark Turn of Mind.   

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An edited film version of this event will be made available towards the end of the festival on our videos page. 

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This event will take place in The Blue Lamp, Gallowgate, Aberdeen, in person with all Covid-19 safety measures in place. Please let us know if you have registered but cannot attend as soon as possible as places are limited. 

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If this in-person event cannot take place due to covid-19 restrictions at the time, or for any other reason, we will move it online and provide you with a link.