GUIR! Gaelic Arts Scratch Performance

GUIR!, Glasgow Life’s Gaelic Arts incubator programme, has been supporting artists to develop new Gaelic work across disciplines since 2018.  See new work from The 2026 cohort including Angus MacLeod, Màiri Morrison, Kit Rodman-Orr, Rommy Nic Mhicheal and Marie Trestrail.

On Thursday 23 April, the programme includes special guests Còisir Cuèir (Queer Choir) with their first ever public performance.  

This event is open to anyone. There will be Gaelic to English translation via headsets.

Aonghas MacLeòid will present a new dramatic work in development looking at the destruction of Glasgow's 18th century theatres. Told by the Irish actress George Anne Bellamy, whose wardrobe was burnt by a Glaswegian mob, it explores the figures of Daniel Burrell, a local dancing master, and George Whitefield, a former actor turned revivalist preacher, examining how these figures competed for audiences and how creativity can flourish despite destruction and prejudice. 

Rommy Nic Mhicheal and Marie Trestrail will present their research and developing work on their short, multi-medium film adapting a Gaelic folktale, titled Uair a Bha Siud: Ursgeul na Feannaig or Once Upon a Time: The Tale of the Hoodie. Combining live-action footage of Scottish landscapes with original animated sequences, the project focuses on folktales collected and set in the nature of Islay, reflecting Romy’s personal connection to the island and its culture and Marie's interest in the natural world and how we represent it in film.

Màiri Morrison will be sharing excerpts from a new piece of work in the form of gig theatre, working title, Snàithlein.  Using song, music and storytelling, Màiri will explore Gaelic healing practices drawing inspiration from local traditional knowledge in the Hebrides and Mary Beith’s book of traditional medicines, Healing Threads. She will be joined by special guests for the sharing.

Kit Rodman-Orr will screen a film of dance theatre work in development. Bogadh (mus tilleadh am muir air a’ lìonadh) explores climate change, movement, language, and identity through a Gaelic lens. Set within the urban architecture of Glasgow, the work imagines rising sea levels carrying a dancer upward along the city’s walls, using vertical harness dance as both a physical and symbolic response to environmental and personal flux.