Frank McConnell,
was born and brought up in Glasgow of a family with strong Hebridean ties and no interest in the arts. He trained as a PE teacher but found an escape route into dance from which he has never returned. He has performed and collaborated with Communicado Theatre company on seven occasions but it is principally known as a choreographer. Frank set up his own company Plan B in 1989 (with Caroline Docherty). Plan B's most recent production "Double Helix" is touring venues throughout the Highlands in November this year. He moved to the Highlands in 1994 to work as dancer-in-residence for Ross and Cromarty District Council and to develop his growing love for Scottish step dancing and Scotland's earlier dance heritage. In May 2000, he was one of the first people in Britain to be awarded a Fellowship from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts and is using this time to explore his own creativity within a Highland landscape. Frank is 42, married and has two children who will grow up to be very rich and keep him in his retirement.

Mats Melin,
is a Swedish born Traditional Dancer and Researcher now based in Angus. He has worked and performed extensively in Angus, Sutherland, the Scottish Highlands, the Hebrides, Orkney, and Shetland, in their schools and communities promoting Scottish traditional dance. He has also taught and performed in Canada, USA, and New Zealand. Mats has a vast knowledge of all aspects of the Scottish Traditional Dance scene, but specialises in Step dancing and the old social dances such as the Scotch reels and Quadrilles. He has worked both with traditional and contemporary artists in Scotland. Mats has been Traditional Dance Artist in Residence for both Shetland and Sutherland. Between 1998 and March 2003 he was working as the Traditional Dance Development Officer for the Angus District and later Perth & Kinross on behalf of The Scottish Traditions of Dance Trust. Mats has over the last few years been working as a freelance dance teacher and performer (Taigh Dannsa). He graduated the MA in Ethnochoreology course at the Irish World Music Centre at the University of Limerick, Ireland in 2005 with Honours. He has taken up a one year lectureship at the re-named Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at UL for the Academic year of 2005/6. He is married with three young bairns and presently stays in Limerick.

Sandra Robertson,
has danced since childhood. She trained in Highland Dancing for over 10 years gaining a teaching qualification with the BATD. She became interested in more traditional styles of dance on witnessing Fearchar MacNeil's revival of the Hebridean dances in Barra, her family home. She has also studied older folk dances and styles with James MacDonald Reid as a member of 'Drumalban'. Latterly she has been hugely attracted to step-dancing which she has studied both here in Scotland and Cape Breton. Sandra has performed, both solo and as a group, throughout Scotland as well as Ireland, Wales, France and Barbados. She has also taught extensively throughout Scotland. She is now married and lives in Kingussie.

Fin Moore
is a piper, born & bred. He plays the Highland pipes, Border pipes and Scottish Small Pipes. For five years, he played in the Vale of Atholl Juvenile Band and is now a partner with his father, Hamish, as very successful pipemakers.

Fin is gaining a great reputation as a teacher of pipes, having completed four summer seasons teaching at the Gaelic College in Cape Breton. He has also taught at the Lowland and Border Pipers Society annual teaching weekend in Melrose and at Piper Gathering North Hero, Vermont and other schools around the world.

He has now performed at the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow, Celtic Colours in Cape Breton, the Edinburgh International Festival and the William Kennedy Piping Festival, Armagh. He has played solo and with bands including, Dannsa who are gaining great respect in Scotland and abroad for their traditional and innovating dancing, the internationally renowned Cape Breton band, Slainte Mhath, and Back of the Moon, winners at the traditional music awards 2003.

"this boy was born to play a reel and when he did so on the Scottish Small Pipes, stamping both feet to produce a step dance rhythm section........ living precariously with his own exciting variations, he was magic" 25th of August 1999, Alastair Clark The Scotsman.