Category: Scottish Country Dancing
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Culture and connection
I have been reading about an interesting phenomenon: Generation Z’s feelings of nostalgia for times they don’t remember: the 1980s, the 1990s and the year 2000. They are buying flip phones and uttering blasphemies against wokery. It looks as if all that Gen X preening on Facebook—how as children we rode our bicycles around from…
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Three Dances
This morning I’m contemplating three dances: one proposed to me, one at which I danced, and one I didn’t dance. The Proposed Dance This dance was proposed by two of teenaged members of our Traditional Latin Mass community here in Edinburgh. They requested a Masquerade Ball. They didn’t specify that it should be held at…
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A New Challenge
This week I eagerly hurried off to a dance class held by a branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society (RSCDS). Inspired by a year-and-a-half of learning ceilidh dances, I decided I wanted to grasp The Real Thing. Meanwhile, I thought that having figured out how to dance “Hamilton House” would stand me in…
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An Hour’s Christmas Dance
Mr McLean and I are hosting an hour of dancing after the parish Christmas party. Our idea is that it will give young parents who enjoy dancing–but for obvious reasons can rarely go out–the opportunity to cut a caper or two with the fancy-free parishioners. Everyone will have been fed, the children will have had…
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The Drama of Hamilton House
There is Scottish Country Dancing, and then there is ceilidh dancing. Scottish Country Dancing, which derived from 17th century English country dances and older Highland dances, is beautiful and complicated. Quite a lot of thought went into creating English and Scottish country dances, and it takes a lot of thought and practice to do them…