strathspey@strathspey.org:43931

Fiona Grant

Scottish dancing

Jan. 29, 2006, 4:42 p.m. (Message 43931)

Anselm writes:
Country dancing did not need Scotland to get off the ground originally.

I agree, but I think it did need Scottish influence to become Scottish
country dancing. Without the musical and dance culture in Scotland at
the time of the introduction of country dancing, I doubt whether we
would be stepping it out to reels and strathspeys the way we do now.
If jigs and polkas had been more favoured in Scotland, perhaps we
would have been doing Irish sets. I keep wondering about how music
influences the form of dance? Does anyone know of any research
comparing different cultures in this way? Share it please! I'd be
fascinated.

Another remarkable thing about dance evolution in Scotland in the late
20th century was the impact of more formal dance organisations. It
seems generally agreed that the RSCDS and the Highland dance
organisations have had a huge influence on the development of dance in
Scotland over recent decades, and I admire how these organisations
have promoted, preserved and developed particular dance forms. At the
same time I regret the segregation into specialism which has meant
that nowadays you go to a country dance, or a ceilidh dance or an old
time dance, but rarely to a dance which brings together an opportunity
to dance all these forms, as used to be the case at the beginning of
the 20th century. In my Granny's teenage dancing days before the First
World War, the Saturday dance programme would have on it old Scotch
Reels (Reel of 4), country dances (Petronella, Flowers of Edinburgh),
quadrilles (eg: Caledonians, Lancers) and circle dances (Highland
Schottish, Barn dance, waltz).

The rules and regimentation developed over the second half of the 20th
century has, I think, taken away the spontaneity and improvisation
which used to characterise Scottish dances earlier in the century, and
can still be glimpsed in Shetland reels, Cape Breton sets and at
ceilidh dances where dancers can develop an individual style within
the broad outline of the dance and the cadence of the music, by
introducing their own preferred ways of stepping and birling. Maybe we
should have "workshops" interpreting the music with birls, twirls and
stepping! The current fashion for devising ever increasing numbers of
dances which are full of complex figures and half figures, with every
member of the set doing interlinked travelling formations (meanwhile
bits) has its place, but I find these "pattern" dances only need
rhythm, not music for performance. I miss having the freedom to step
out or have fun devising a twiddly bit with a partner, all of which is
possible with older, "simpler" dances, but out of order in pattern
dances where there is no space for interpretation of the music. At the
same time, I can understand and appreciate what dancers mean when they
say they like the dance to flow, but I often long for the excitement
of some unexpected change of direction, transition, or even better, an
unchoreographed adjustment to the expected pattern. I genuinely like
it when the dancing couple either by design or mistake decide for
example to enter the reel of  unconventionally, and then the whole set
laughs and adjusts to get the set back into the swing of the dance.
Sometimes during an evening's programme of taxing modern dances, I
can't help but notice a robotic seriousness on the faces of the
dancers as they concentrate on the preformance of a memorised pattern
of movements. So different from when the sets get carried away during
a very familiar "easy" dance because we have brain space to listen to
a set of tunes that just won't let the feet stand still. I have heard
band musicians complain that the dancers don't listen to the music -
maybe their listening space is taken up with the struggle to recall
complex dance movements?

Nuff for now..

Fiona
Bristol_______________________________________________
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