25th-27th June 2010
Wiston, Biggar
African Music and Story Adventure from Ghana with Gift Amu Logotse
Gift Amu-Logotse was born and brought up in a typical African shantytown in West Africa, AMU has now made Scotland his home.
Since the age 11 years AMU has been interested in research into Ethnomusicology and traditional folklore, Arts and Culture from various places around the world.
Mara Menzies will lead sessions on Stories and Dance from Kenya
Mara Menzies is passionate about sharing African folktales from her childhood – she grew up in Kenya where she heard first-hand the stories which exposed the rich cultural tradition of African beliefs and values.
Find out more about Mara by visiting her website, Toto Tales
1
Bernard MacLaverty is the author of the novels Lamb (1980); Cal (1983); Grace Notes (1997); and The Anatomy School (2001), set in Belfast in the late 1960’s.
Both Lamb and Cal have been made into major films for which he wrote the screenplays, and he has written various versions of his fiction for radio, television and screen.
Grace Notes was awarded the 1997 Saltire Society Scottish Book of the Year Award and shortlisted for many other major prizes, including the Booker Prize for Fiction and the Whitbread Novel Award. His books of short stories are Secrets & Other Stories (1977); A Time to Dance & Other Stories (1982); The Great Profundo & Other Stories (1987); Walking the Dog & Other Stories (1994), and most recently, Matters of Life & Death (2006).
In 2003, he wrote and directed a short film, Bye-Child, after a poem by Seamus Heaney, which was nominated for a BAFTA (Best Short Film Award) and won a BAFTA Scotland (Best First Director Award).
He has also written 2 books for young children: A Man in Search of a Pet (1978), which he also illustrated; and Andrew McAndrew (1988).
1
The Ramayana Story (The Journey of Rama) originated in India 4th Century BC around 9th Century AD it travelled to Indonesia, and they have been retelling it ever since.
Storyteller and musician Mags Smith brings a retelling of this epic story inspired by her travels to Indonesia. After hearing and seeing the Ramayana
story told over again in pictures, stone reliefs, dances, shadow plays and dramas, Mags has taken it into her own tradition of oral storytelling. She
is joined by fellow gamelan musicians Katherine Waumsley and J Simon van der Walt who will weave traditional Indonesian melodies and textures in and out of the story (along with stuff they’ve just made up!) using a selection of Javanese gamelan instruments, some Balinese chant and a smattering of
flutes, trumpets and triangles.
1
Justin read Classics Greats at Oxford, and trained at Drama Studio London, graduating with honours in 1992.
Justin has worked all over the world as a director, writer, actor and musician in a vast range of roles and productions in theatre, television, radio and film. Among his written credits are Scaramouche Jones, which he will be bringing to Solas.
Ancient clown Scaramouche breaks fifty years’ silence to give his final performance…
…and charts a bizarre odyssey through crumbling empires, comic misadventures and the 20th Century’s darkest episodes, revealing the loves, the brutalities, the ecstasies and the tragedies beneath his seven white masks in an epic, poetic, profoundly moving tale.
1
Ros started work in the film industry as a runner in David Hayman’s 1988 feature, Silent Scream.
She worked as a researcher at Scottish Television, independently produced documentaries and then spent 6 years as Co-production Executive at the BBC.
She set up her own independent production company, Gabriel Films, in 1999 and has since produced several short films, documentaries and feature films, including Afterlife, (Standard Life Audience Award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2003), and Wild Country, (Best Cinematography Award at the Estepona Film Festival in 2006).
She also co-produced Kevin MacDonald’s The Last King of Scotland which won an Academy Award for Forest Whitaker as Best Actor.
Ros is now an emerging screenwriter.
2
Martin Compston was discovered by Ken Loach when he played the lead in Sweet Sixteen and was celebrated at the Cannes Film Festival for his performance.
He has since acted in Monarch of the Glen for BBC, independent feature films Wild Country, Red Road and True North and A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints with Robert Downey Jnr.
3
Eddie Dick runs Makar Productions. Makar’s credits include: forthcoming Outcast, Trouble Sleeping, Blind Flight and True North.
Eddie’s Executive Producer credits include Small Faces, My Life So Far, Regeneration, Stella Does Tricks.
4