Islanders can enjoy an all-Island, all-ages Celtic variety show at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 20, at the Blue Heron.
More than a dozen Island musicians, singers and dancers will take the stage in the special musical event, organized by Islander Dan Brown.
Brown is a member of a well-known Island band, Geordie’s Byre, which has been entertaining Island audiences with jigs, reels and other lively traditional tunes for 10 years.
To celebrate that milestone and show off the wide range of other Celtic talent on the Island, Brown has assembled an impressive lineup of entainment.
The first half of Saturday’s show will feature Vashon’s own step dance group, a chapter of Scoil Rince Slieveloughane (SRS), which in Gaelic means the Hillside Irish Dancers.
The group is comprised of seven Island girls, aged 11 to 18, who have been meeting on weekly for the past five years. The troupe’s teacher, Sara Fogard, is a longtime SRS dancer and Irish dance competitor.
The girls’ performance on Saturday will cap off a busy week for the dancers, who will perform at events including an Irish dinner at St. John Vianney Church, a céilí dance at the Grange Hall and a St. Pat’s celebration at The Hardware Store Restaurant.
For more information about SRS and to enroll in Fogard’s classes, visit www.srsirishdance.com.
Sword dancing, a grand tradition of the Scottish Highlands, will be performed by Islander Evan Malczyk. He will be accompanied by Island piper John Dally.
Other guests will include well-known Islander Gordon Millar, an original Geordie’s Byre member, and vocalists Julie Mainstone and Marita Ericksen.
The second half of the evening will showcase the music of Geordie’s Byre in a lively set of jigs, reels and ballads.
The band’s current members are Dan Brown on bass, Jean Richstad on fiddle and vocals, Jasper Forrester on vocals, Steve Amsden on guitar, Larry Lawson on flute and cittern player and storyteller Wally Bell.
Tickets, $13 and $15, are on sale at Books by the Way, Blue Heron and Heron’s Nest and by phone at 463-5131.
