strathspey@strathspey.org:43934

Pia Walker

RE: Scottish Country Dancing VS Scottish Folk Dancing

Jan. 29, 2006, 5:51 p.m. (Message 43934, in reply to message 43932)

It is a bit chicken and egg - when 'traditional dancing' started - way back
whenever, it was probably not called 'traditional' dancing, but 'some
new-fangled ideas that those young whipper snappers brought in' or words to
that effect.  Traditional is in itself a development of something - just
because we have documented it better than people did hundreds of years ago,
and because we can remember the person starting it, doesn't in my opinion
mean that it is not a tradition.

Tradition in my opinon does not equate with dead and gone and unchanging
within a set time-frame, but is a living, developing form of expressive arts
with roots in the country/culture/community it started from.

Pia