Traditional Catholic social dancing is a worldwide movement, and we in Scotland hear of exciting lessons at the American “Newman Guide Colleges” and at formal balls in, for example, St. Louis, Missouri. Last May, a visiting American student introduced me over email to the chief promoter of traditional Catholic social dancing in St. Louis, Anna Kalinowska.
If the name sounds familiar, it may be because Miss Kalinowska is also a writer, the author of the recently released Clothed with Beauty: A Catholic Philosophy of Dress. (I have discussed her book here and there.) And now some of us in Edinburgh can brag that we have met her, for Anna and her sister Katie dropped in for a visit on their way to Rome.
Anna is now travelling, so I can unfairly scoop her Edinburgh dance adventures and tell you all about Friday through Sunday. That said, these reflections will be purely from my perspective, and I hope I will have the opportunity to read hers somewhere.
On Friday, I met Anna in the Johnnie Walker Experience building, not because we are whisky drinkers, but because it is a handy meeting-place on the route between the FSSP chapel and the city centre. After a drink (G&T for me, some sober concoction for her), we went to a ceilidh at Ghillie Dhu, an ex-church-now-restaurant-and-bar.
The Ceilidh
I was expecting the Ghillie Dhu ceilidh to be for tourists, but I was taken aback that the band was more interested in heavy metal than in folk music, and when they did play traditional tunes, they too had a metallic clang. The amplification for the instruments was too loud, and for the caller too soft, and the caller directed dancers to form one long queue down the room when indeed the numbers called for two.
As for the dances, we began with the Dashing White Sergeant, the Gay Gordon, the Riverside Jig and the Military Two-Step, but the repertoire took an odd turn after that. I could sense deceased members of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society turning in their graves when the caller instructed dancers to “just run randomly around the room until you find another couple.” That said, I had already hurt my knee before this most untraditional direction. Although Anna, probably the most graceful partner I’ve ever danced with, took to it all like a duck to water, the Military Two-Step had been to me absolute agony.
In his magnificent essay “A Different Drummer,” Oliver Platt reflects on the effect rock music has on the soul. He doesn’t describe what it is like to hear it after years of abstaining from discos. Live and at that volume, heavy metal and heavy-folk-metal is absolute hell on the nerves. With a jangled mind and a sore knee, I suggested to Anna that we flee to Jazz Church.
Jazz Church
Oh, the joy of a taxi cab and the money to pay for it! As we were driven through the soft rain by our Scottish cabbie-rescuer, I had the leisure to discuss clothing with Anna. She was wearing large pearl teardrop (probably clip) earrings rimmed with gold and a beautifully subtle brocade princess line dress in pale gold. Her dark hair was in French roll, and she was carrying a pair of gold satin dancing pumps in her bag. Needless to say, she was immaculately turned out, and Jazz Church sat up and took notice.
To recap, Jazz Church is roughly divided betwen 80-year-old jazz musicians and fans and swing dancers aged from roughly 70 to 30 (or 24, when Chronological Shorty George attends). Week after week, the old jazzmen and women faithfully attend, and the numbers of swing dancers fluctuate. I rarely go without CSG for, as much as I adore the music, invitations by other regulars to dance are few and far between. However, I suspected that Anna’s chances of being asked to dance were much better at Jazz Church than at the Ghillie Dhu ceilidh.
How right I was! All I had to do was introduce her to the regular CSG calls “the Master,” and the trick was done. Four men and one woman, most of whom never ask me to dance, invited her onto the floor. Behind me the club grumbler, who has seen me 15 times without registering my presence, got terribly excited.
“Is that your daughter?” he demanded. “She’s beautiful!”
One of the nice things about taking youngsters about is being mistaken for their mother. This is probably not nice when you’re 35, but it’s lovely when you’re over 50, especially when the youngsters are tall, slim and good-looking. It’s charming to think that Mr. McLean and I, who are roughly the size and shape of a salt-and-pepper set, could have had such handsome children.
To be fair to Jazz Church, on this occasion I was asked to dance by three regulars but had to refuse them all because of my knee. Happily, the band was terrific, and I greatly enjoyed watching Anna learn the Lindy Hop on the fly.
At 11, I summoned another taxicab, and off we went. There is something extremely satisfying about taxicabs in the rain. And this cabbie was very chatty in a telltale accent, so once Anna alighted, I said, A jak długo jest Pan w Edynburgu? and had some late-night Polish practice.
The Dinner Party
On Saturday I discovered halfway to Tesco that I could no longer walk without pain most excruciating. Elderly people offered me loans of their canes, and Mr McLean zoomed back in his wheelchair to see what had become of me, thus introducing a note of true Hardyesque tragedy to our shopping expedition. However, just as Olympic athletes injure their ankles but carry on to win Gold, Mrs McLean staggered on to Tesco, bought provisions, arrived home, put away her husband’s wheelchair, hoovered the flat, cooked dinner for six, and set the table. So thank you to Kerri Strug for her sterling example.
That’s the quiet part out loud. As it happens, I was extremely pleased when the table was all set, for we abound in wine glasses and lovely Royal Worcester china. Also, I very much enjoy dinner party cookery. The trick is to have a repertoire of dishes whose recipes you know well and to work out in advance the order in which to cook them. On this occasion we had Polish chicken broth with noodles and bakery rye bread; roast chicken with gravy, mashed potatoes, curried carrots and minted peas; chocolate pudding with whipped cream and raspberries; coffee with chocolates; Stilton and biscuits.
Our guests were Anna, Katie, a goldsmith and a scientist. The scientist arrived with rum, cola, limes, ice and a burning desire to make Cuba Libres. So before supper, the drinkers among us had Cuba Libres as well as G&Ts. The conversation, as you can imagine, was most absorbing. Almost everyone there was an artist of one sort or another. And, of course, one of the themes was Recent News about the SSPX; I could almost hear it echoing in trad Catholic homes up and down Great Britain, from the Continent, from all over the world.
The Waltzing Party
On Sunday, I baked shortbread, and Mr McLean bought paper cups and napkins. Then we went to Mass, Mr McL in his wheelchair and I with his old cane. I thought gloomily of my Scots-Canadian grandmother—spry as a cricket until 80 despite a lifetime of Players cigarettes. Still, these days you can get a new knee if you need one.
After Mass I introduced Anna and Katie to the new Head Tea Lady and various members of the Under-40 set. When the HTL threw us all out, I led the way around the corner to our usual dance studio: the former parish hall of yet another ex-church. As usual, the boys outnumbered the girls, but this time only 7:4.
Anna’s lessons were marvellous. The dancers learned two sequence waltzes, one danced to “The Veleta” and the other to “Charade.” As a break between, Anna taught them “The Ship’s Cook,” a country dance invented for the 2009 film of Emma. (The sandwich box on the floor was in lieu of a ring of chairs to stop the circle from growing too small.)I was very sorry to have to sit them all out, but I was gratified to see how well our regulars coped with them, being used to our usual Natural Turn (x2)– Change Step–Reverse Turn (x2)–Change Step routine.
However, I wondered how well we would remember the new steps after Anna left and how we might persuade her to stay in Scotland, for at least six months, or just until we had Advanced Waltzing indelibly marked in our brains and feet. I shall have to look up Royal Scottish Country Dance Society scholarships or kidnappers.
Then as always we had the Free Dance, which included the Ravelston Waltz and the St. Bernhard’s Bernard’s Waltz, then Strip the Willow, and the Marian Anthem at the end. The shortbread was gone, but there was still some zucchini (courgette) cake and a most traditional Scottish raspberry traybake. Thus the company was well-fed on top of being well-instructed, and I believe we all left in very good spirits.
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