February 6, 2002

Burns Night revels in all things Scottish

Kilts, sword dance and haggis all part of cultural celebration

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
       Toasting their Haggis with vigor and enthusiasm, the 175 attendees at the 201st Annual Burns Night celebrated their Scottish heritage and Scotland's favorite son: Robert Burns. Filling the Park Place Dome with their kilts and plaids, songs and laughter, the event was a toast to all things Scottish - most especially 'Rabbie' Burns.
      Poet, author and composer, Burns is referred to as the Bard by proud Scots, who can point to his prolific publications that have been translated into more languages than Shakespeare's works. An informal count by the event's emcee, Jack Fellows, showed that Burns currently had 83 works in print, 14 ballads, 281 published songs, 182 minor works and more than 543 private letters.
      "There were hundreds of songs that he took no money or credit for," Fellows noted. "He was a monumental author, more widely translated than Shakespeare, more widely read. He was fun and not tough to understand and was quite a romantic. He fought 200 years ago for what we would call women's rights."
      Credited with preserving the Scottish language, Burns' poem "Address to a Haggis" immortalized the concoction and ritual consumption of a baked sheep's stomach stuffed with entrails, oatmeal and spices.
      "Back in the old days, when a sheep was slaughtered for the landlord, they took out the stomach and stuffed it with the liver, heart and lungs," said Fellows, who along with his wife, Peggy, has organized the Burns Night celebrations for the past nine years. "We ordered our haggis from a Scottish baker in Redford, the only place that makes it in the state."
      Burns Nights began in 1799 when some of his friends gathered in his memory around his birthday, a few years after his death from heart disease at age 37. The celebrations have since spread worldwide and the format of the event's toasts, speeches, poems, songs and haggis eating has remained virtually unchanged.
      Traverse City has sported a Burns Night for the past 25 years. The Grand Traverse Highlanders host the event as a way to share Scottish culture and music with the community.
      "When the band started 28 years ago, this night was a project we undertook," Fellows added. "A lot of people are very interested in preserving this culture, there is now the St. Andrews Society in town."
      Besides readings from Burns' works, this year also featured singer/songwriter Sara Anderson performing songs she composed during a visit to Scotland.
      "Burns not only wrote poetry but put his own little melodies to it," Anderson said. "So it was a little bit of a challenge to me."
      Members of the local Celtic Fire Highland Dancers and the Mid-Michigan Highland Dance Academy in Alma also gave energized performances of famous Scottish dances, including the Sailors Hornpipe, Irish Jig (Scottish Version) and the technically demanding Sword Dance.
      When Alma High School junior Kate DeGood danced the Sword Dance, she awed the audience with her seemingly effortless performance of the high-speed intricate steps, never letting her feet loose their rhythm or touch the swords beneath them. Her skill was a testimony to the years of training and practice that goes into performing what Fellows termed 'Scottish Aerobics.'
      "She showed why she is second in the world and I have seen the best of the best," said Lee Gwyn of Interlochen, a former competitive Scottish dancer. "My sister and I competed in the world competitions in Scotland when we were younger. Sword dance is very difficult, very precise."
      Gwyn founded the Celtic Fire Highland Dancers five years ago to preserve tradition of these dances and to give her students a way to express their heritage.
      "None of the students I have now have any other dance experience, they are doing it because they are Scottish and their parents and grandparents love watching them," said Gwyn, whose maternal grandparents hailed from Scotland. "We grew up as kids going to parties and competing every weekend. It's like any other cultural thing, you have to have a desire to do it."