The September 2024 Party

Were I possessed of adequate funds, I would offer weekly dance lessons to my Traditional Latin Mass community. Given that my parties take place on Sunday afternoons, I would also offer lunch. There are any number of improvements I would like to make to the tangible form of Mrs McLean’s Waltzing Party, but they will have to wait.

For now my parties take place once a month, except in Lent. Last December I skipped over Advent, too, but this year it occurred to me that Gaudete Sunday cries out for a joyful celebration. My preference would be for a Christmas Waltzing Party, but our beautiful hall is closed tight for the last week of December.

The hall is a long white room with a shining wooden floor below and a buttressed dark wood vaulted ceiling above. Sunlight pours in through large square windows set in the outer side of the ceiling and through Gothic pointed windows beneath. Three sides of the room are lined with pews, and a kitchen hatch is set in the fourth. It is a splendid place to dance, and a vast improvement over our small parish hall, where for eight Sundays we were in danger of bumping into the old fireplace or crashing into stacked up chairs.

Our parish hall did have the advantage of an enormous coffee-and-tea set, a fridge, a hot water machine, and all the other lovely things in its kitchen. For a few months after our daring move down the street I packed up the official Mrs McLean’s Waltzing Party coffee-and-tea set, which is stored under a bed, and accepted a lift to Mass and then to the hall. (I highly recommend that organizers of dance parties possess cars. In urban Scotland you don’t need a car, as you might in Wyoming, but they do come in handy.) Trying to keep so much equipment organized and washing it up in the new kitchen afterwards was so fraught that once I established very few people wanted hot drinks, I gladly reduced my equipment.

Yesterday my party supplies could fit into one big shopping bag: a tin of homemade cookies, a big bottle of orange squash concentrate, paper napkins, paper cups, a plastic jug, the donations box, a marker, a pen, little white cards for suggestions and phone numbers, the playlist on my mobile phone and my beloved powder blue Soundcore Motion 300 bluetooth speaker. These things were very easy to set up. One of the boys helped me unfold a table, one of the girls prepared the orange squash, I found “Begin the Beguine” on my phone, and we were good to go.

We began at 2:35 PM, having giving the latecomers a five minute wait. As always, I asked (shouted at) the guests to gather around and asked the oldest man present to lead us in the Prayer to Saint Michael. I explained the programme for the afternoon: a review of the most basic waltz steps, a thorough tuition in some ceilidh dances, and a half an hour of “free dance” at the end.

The “freedom” of the free dance, by the way, is the freedom of the boys to ask girls to dance or not, as they choose, and of the girls to say Yes or No as they choose. Theoretically, everyone could sit around quaffing squash and chatting for half an hour.

That reminds me: I added to my own programme by starting at the very beginning, which is the “Asking a girl to dance” move. All the young men lined up by height on their side of the hall, and all the ladies lined up on our side of the hall. Then the ladies sat down, and the young men ambled over en masse to ask us to dance and lead us by hand to the dance floor.

A variation on this exercise is called Flat Rejection. In this move, the boys amble across the room to ask, and then the girls say No. Obviously there are gracious ways to do this. A very good one is to employ the sentence “Thank you, but I need some time to catch my breath.” From the mock battle that broke out between a brother and sister, I suspect this was not the phrase she used.

Everybody laughed at the ruckus, and I hope that whenever any of the boys ask and hear No, they remember the jokes and chortles that ensue whenever we practise, and smile.

After that we worked on the “Frame,” that is, the proper position between two dancers, for the English social ballroom waltz, then the good old Box Step, and then the Box Step with the heel first when going forward and the toe first when going back and to the side. (For men this is HEEL-toe-toe,TOE-toe-toe, and for women this is TOE-toe-toe, HEEL-toe-toe.) This creates the lovely rise and fall of the waltz. Finally we reviewed the Natural Turn.

The primary purpose of this particular Waltzing Party was to prepare for the Michaelmas Dance at the end of the month. There will be six waltzes and eight ceilidh dances as well as an opportunity to Lindy Hop. I wanted to give new men enough of a sense of the waltz that they would have the confidence to try it at the Dance. Being able to lead variations–even if just sticking to Natural Turn, Close Change, Reverse Turn–would be ideal, but the best should not be the enemy of the good, to quote wicked old Voltaire.

After half an hour of the Waltz Review, two of my talented guests took over, and we were instructed in Hamilton House, the Virginia Reel, the Eightsome Reel and Strip the Willow. HH and the 8R rather confused me, so I shall have to study them with the aid of the London Reels channel on YouTube.

There was much Scottish galloping and merriment, punctuated by resting, chatting and snacking, for 85 minutes, and then it was time for my waltz-and-swing playlist and the free dance. The young men then practised asking and not asking, and the ladies practised waiting to be asked to dance and then graciously saying Yes or No as they preferred. I lost my shoe in a vigorous swing dance and sparked hilarity by kicking off the second.

Sadly I did not ignite mass dancing when I shouted “SHIM SHAM” and rushed towards the inner wall to lead (I thought) everyone in the routine. It wasn’t until I turned around to find a partner that I discovered just two brave souls dancing behind me. The Shim Sham is on the Michaelmas Dance card, so I hope the regulars, at least, do a bit of practice with this helpful video, hint, hint.

We were twenty people: twelve men and eight women. It is normal for MMDP, if nowhere else in the western world, to have a few more men than women at our dances. This is splendid for the girls, who are guaranteed partners for two hours, but not for the boys who have to sit out from time to time. It is traditionally believed, however, that men mind forming part of a “stag line” less than women mind thinking of themselves as “wallflowers.” Thus, I am grateful for all the men who come while at the same time regarding the women as rare and precious jewels.

Catholic readers in the UK may be interested to know that tickets are still available for the Edinburgh Michaelmas Dance. This will take place on Saturday, September 28, 2024 from 7:30 PM to 11:00 PM. For tickets, please contact me at info@tradcathsocialdancing.co.uk.