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strathspey@strathspey.org:47271

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Anselm Lingnau

Anselm Lingnau

Re: FW: A Dance Called America

Dec. 4, 2006, 1:46 p.m. (Message 47271, in reply to message 47263)

Ian Brockbank wrote:

> Now I suspect this is an urban myth, but I don't know for certain.
> Can anyone answer categorically?

To get to the bottom of this you have to refer to James Boswell's _Journal of 
a Tour to the Hebrides_ (where he went in 1773 with the famous Dr Johnson). 
This was published in 1785, and says in the entry for Saturday, the 2nd of 
October, 1773:

| In the evening the company danced as usual. We performed, with much
| activity, a dance which, I suppose, the emigration from Sky has occasioned.
| They call it ‘America’. Each of the couples, after the common involutions
| and evolutions, successively whirls round in a circle, till all are in
| motion; and the dance seems intended to shew how emigration catches, till a
| whole neighbourhood is set afloat.

This occurred when Boswell and Dr Johnson stayed in the house of one Sir 
Alexander MacDonald in Armadale (in the south of the Isle of Skye). There is 
a very nice web-based edition of Boswell's _Journal_ available from 
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/b/boswell/james/b74t/ . _Traditional 
Dancing in Scotland_, by Flett and Flett, mentions this and cites (on p.155) 
an apparently more extensive version of the _Journal_ explaining the dance 
like this:

| A brisk reel is played. The first couple begin, and each sets to one--then
| each to another--then as they set to the next couple, the second and third
| couples are setting; and so it goes on till al are set a-going, setting
| and wheeling round each other, while each is making the tour of all in the
| dance.

>From the modern point of view Boswell's description is evidently somewhat 
lacking in detail, but I think that it is really the spirit of the dance that 
counts, and so in true RSCDS tradition one should make up the movements such 
that they suit the spirit, whatever the historical precedent :^)

Anselm
-- 
Anselm Lingnau, Frankfurt, Germany ..................... xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are
wonderful.                                                      -- Ann Landers

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