Wendy is a passionate advocate for traditional dance. She is a Senior Teaching Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and has authored book chapters and published in international peer reviewed journals.

With thirty-five years’ experience training dancers and dance teachers, Wendy developed the MSc programme in Dance Science & Education and optional General Teaching Council for Scotland accredited teaching pathway.

Wendy is a member of the steering board for the School for Scottish and Celtic Studies Archive and has curated several dance artists’ residency and archival projects at Moray House School of Education and Sport, the University of Edinburgh.

Eleanor is a dance artist and teacher in both Highland and Step Dance.

She is an associate member of the British Association of Teachers of Dancing with a Masters in Arts and Cultural Management. With close connections to the Hebrides and Northern Isles, Eleanor taught Highland Dance in the Western Isles for a number of years before leaving to travel abroad.

Eleanor now works in arts marketing for a community arts and heritage venue in Argyll and plans to continue her practice as a teaching artist in the near future.

Eleanor on Facebook

Kalubi was born and raised in Belgium. She started her training in traditional Luba dance and singing (from the Democratic Republic of the Congo) at age 3 years. She graduated High School with Baccalaureate in Dance and in 2005 started training in hip-hop and founded the hip-hop company “Born2Move”.  She has a BA (Hons) in Contemporary Dance performance, and an MSc in Dance Science and Education from the University of Edinburgh.

Kalubi is also the founder and director of Seven Artist Management – an agency that aims to bring diversity to the Scottish performing art scene.

[email protected]

Jacqueline is a New Zealander of Scottish ancestry who is now a permanent resident of the UK with her home in Edinburgh. She has spent decades teaching, coaching and presenting her innovative music-movement methods in New Zealand through education, sport and cultural organisations leading to, in recent years, opportunities for research in  brain and cognitive sciences at Edinburgh, High Performance Sport NZ and Sydney.

Jacqueline continues to be a working advocate for integrating  physical, cognitive, social and emotional  learning  through  music-dance patterns along with ongoing research in developmental cognitive genetics.

[email protected]

Colin has been involved in many forms of dance from an early age, including ballet, Eastern European folk dance, Greek dance, Renaissance dance, Scottish country and ceilidh dancing, along with Irish step and set dancing. He now both plays in and calls for a ceilidh band. Currently, he is also the treasurer of the Edinburgh International Folk Dance Group (EIFDG).

Colin has an extensive experience of administration and management over many years, including as a supervisor of the manufacturing side of R M Cameron and the former Sons Stationers.

[email protected]

From the age of 14 years Bernie has played the accordion, and now leads a small ceilidh band. He also teaches ceilidh dancing as exercise classes in fitness centres and lays on dementia-friendly Scottish music shows in care homes.

Bernie is a former senior army signals officer with a wealth of international experience working with both NATO and the UN. During his service he went to sea with the Royal Navy, flew with the Luftwaffe and completed the French commando course.

Since leaving the army, Bernie has worked in Saudi Arabia, as business tutor at Fife College and as a recruitment consultant.

www.ceilidhcraic.net

Image by Scibor Lee