Author: The Force

🇺🇸The team are so excited to be performing on such an historic island whilst over at the NYC Tartan Week!!

The Learned Kindred of Currie – Clan Currie Society will be hosting the 23rd Annual Tartan Day on Ellis Island celebrations from April 4-6, 2025. This prestigious event honours Scottish heritage, culture, and contributions to America, bringing together Scots and Scottish Americans 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇺🇸 from across the country.

Scheduled to perform at this years event, are: The Force, Shot of Scotch – NYC’s Premier Scottish Highland Dancers, St. Columcille United Gaelic Pipe Band, Scottish juggler John Grimaldi and members of the Fling Together dancers and the McAngus School of Highland Dance.

To all our American friends who are heading to this years NYC Tartan Week performances will take place every day between 10AM and 3PM on the great lawn facing the Statue of Liberty🗽and overlooking the Manhattan skyline!!🇺🇸

The Force are pleased to announce a new member of our elite team, Louise Smiton.

Louise has performed with The Force at several events over the past year and we are delighted that she has accepted our invitation to become part of our elite team of Champion Drum Majors.

Louise is the current 2024 World Juvenile Champion and 2024 British Juvenile Champion, which follows her success in 2023 as European Juvenile Champion. Louise has also obtained many other accolades over the years including being crowned Ulster Champion and Northern Ireland Champion of Champions.

Louise started out as a Drum Major at the age of 6 years old and began competing when she was 7 years old. When asked how she felt when being offered a place in the elite team, Louise said “I am delighted to become a member of the Force elite team. It’s such an exciting opportunity and I’m looking forward to the future with a great team!! I screamed with excitement when I was asked”.

The Force founder Senior Drum Major Paula Braiden said “Its great to have Louise part of our elite team, from the very moment she put her name forward for an event, she came with the preparations needed, was enthusiastic and on her first event and thereafter comes with the complete routine learned from video and steps right into place. Louise shows excitement, commitment and a determination to work hard, she walked into an already strong team that has existed for a long time and fits perfectly.

Team work is everything within The Force, and as it continues to grow, we are delighted to see Louise form great friendships and share in the excitement of our first international gig, which is only a few weeks away for New York Tartan Week.

Visit our website to see our full list of Elite Team members.

www.theforce.events/meet-the-team

Our raffle amongst other generous donations and sponsorships has led us to confirm and finally accept our fantastic invitation to attend New York Tartan Week and Parade down 6th Avenue in New York City, 5th April 2025. 🗽

This prestigious invitation (snippet below) has been something that we have been working so hard behind the scenes to make a reality. To know that The Force team have been given this recognition and support to attend, has been super exciting for everyone. 🙌

With the support of the recent Raffle which was supplied and donated by the Galgorm Resort, local businesses, previous event donations, we are able to go to New York and perform, show off some new merchandise and enjoy all what New York has to offer! 🍎

#TheBigApple #NewYorkTartanWeek #NewYorkTartanDayParade #TheForce

Watch our Live Draw, which announced the winner of the Galgorm Raffle prize!!
150 raffle tickets were sold for this amazing prize, which was a 2x night stay, evening meal, afternoon team along with spa access!!

Congratulations to Jason Todd!!! 🤩🤩

The draw was conducted by non other than the Red Hot Chilli Pipers founder, Stuart Cassells who is a long time friend of our teams founder Paula. Stuart is a Pipe Band legend and has always been a great support to our team.

Thankyou to everyone that supported this raffle

Our New Partnership right here! 🤩
We are delighted to announce and celebrating the start of our exciting partnership journey with St. Columba’s School, which enables us to break into their Piping and Drumming programme. Its an incredible opportunity which we can’t wait to get started with. 🙌🙌 #Innovation #ScotlandSchools #DrumMajors #TheForceAcademy

What a fantastic evening at the Burns Supper Ballymoney. It’s an event I personally enjoy every year, all its acts and the local people not to mention the organisation by David and Heather. 🎶

Our team showcased two new displays, traditional 6/8 March and Bonnie Bonnie Banks. There was also a little audience participation and mini display, thanks to my trusted Drum Major tutor/life long friend Alan who had us in stitches. 🤩🙌👏

We welcomed Thea Kinley from Kathryn Stewart’s Highland Dancers and Display Team again, and welcomed Jasmyn Smyth CLRG Championship dancer for the Carroll School of Irish Dancing. These girls put on a show and a half with their Battle of the Dances and individual pieces.

Videos to follow as we are thankful to The Big Rab Show for recording the evening.

Long day of filming was had on 26th January with Triplevision Productions who spent the day learning all things Drum Majoring.
We can’t wait to share the finished product. Very cool!
#TriplevisionProductions

We are absolutely honoured to be invited to participate in the 2025 Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo, and celebrate their theme “FLOURISH”.

We can’t wait to share our exciting work in the lead up to this event, which puts Drum Majoring at the heart of the show. We participate as an act, lead the Massed Pipes and Drums and have a few other exciting parts to play! We Cannot Wait To Share!

The hard work and planning starts now for the 2025 Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo on June 27 – July 1, 2025!

The Force team are thrilled to have this exciting international event to look forward to, amongst an already busy 2025!

#TheForce #June2025 #Canada #DisplayTeamOfChampionDrumMajors

It’s worthy of a count down!!! Tuesday socials are going to be epic for our Elite team.

#5DaysToGo #ThisOneIsBig

Incredibly proud of these two future champion Drum Majors. This is incredible, and the timing. #VirtualLessonsWork

A big well done guys!! #ScholarshipStudents #HardWorkPaysOff #TheNextGeneration