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I hope this website will both attract more tradition-minded Catholics to Mrs McLean’s Waltzing Party events in Edinburgh and encourage other Catholic married ladies d’un certain age to organize their own social dances for the young (and-not-so-young) Catholics of their communities.
Mrs Dorothy McLean
Music and dance have a marked influence on not only the individual soul but the societies in which we live.
I am a writer, and I once wrote that older, married Catholics should organize social activities for the younger, unmarried faithful.
And indeed a few years ago one of our parish mothers and I agreed that it would be a very good thing to organize a ball for all the Traditonal Latin Mass-loving families scattered across Great Britain, so that the TLM young could meet each other under amusing circumstances in the company of their parents. (I had read many Georgette Heyer novels; can you tell?) My friend’s lively, pretty daughters, then in their teens, agreed. Unfortunately, I never worked out how it could be done without great expense, bother, and fuss.
Then, not long before the Covid crisis, a local Austrian friend disclosed to me that he would like to take a group from our Edinburgh Catholic TLM community to waltzing lessons and then carry them off on a pilgrimage to Vienna’s waltzing season. I thought this was a splendid idea, but then the lamps started going off all over Europe, as it were, and any waltzes to speak of went underground.
By 2023 the lamps had been lit again…
By 2023 the lamps had been lit again and Vienna’s waltzes had come back upstairs. After our local Austrian friend gave me an impromptu dance lesson, I lost my head and said aloud that it would be lovely to have a party in which the young people could learn to waltz. Our Austrian friend agreed, and some parents of teenagers agreed, too.
I rolled up my 3/4 sleeves…
I was asked about it the next Sunday in front of a young person, and when I explained to the young person what I had proposed, her face lit up like a spring dawn. So I rolled up my sleeves and wrote to various authorities, including the safeguarding officer, to book the parish hall. I did this as a private person, quite independent of our chaplains, following the model of people who book the hall for christening parties and wedding receptions. To underscore the privateness/independence of the party, I wrote out 19 invitations including 29 people, and to underscore my sterling character and cover any official objections, I impressed upon the mothers of any invited guest under 18 that they had to come, too. The invitations I left to our new dancing master to distribute while I was at a Catholic conference in Vienna.
Meanwhile, I wrote a goodly number of emails to those governing the parish hall, followed up with a telephone call as time wore on, sent the completed, scanned application form to authority, paid the fee, bought a bottle of squash and a bag of coffee, made a cake, and noted that only a tiny remnant had yet sent RSVPs. I chalked this up to RSVPs being unusual for the Facebook—let alone the WhatsApp—generation.
However, on Sunday after the After-Mass Tea while the boys were stacking chairs to make room in the parish hall for a dance floor, my old friend Anxiety took me by the hand, gazed into my eyes with false compassion, and asked where all the girls were. The alarm clock on my phone went off at 2:29 PM, and the parish hall corridor suddenly filled with young men of various heights in sharp suits of various materials. There seemed to be a dozen of them. (In fact, there were 11.) And in the hall itself were exactly five young ladies and two mother-chaperones.
Aghast I rushed into the car park and pulled out my phone. Where were my friend’s lively, pretty daughters? (My friend didn’t answer, so I couldn’t find out.) Where were the Xs, and where was Y? Was some girl I had momentarily forgotten perhaps coming up the road? I looked around the corner, but no, she was not.
It was as I feared. The TLM demographics—which I thought had improved so much—had defeated me. For years the fact that vastly more men than women go to our TLM—a trend not replicated in any other mixed-sex Catholic community that I can think of—amused me. Yesterday I did not think it very amusing.
However, I managed to pull myself together and remember that God is in charge, so I went back into the hall, appealed to the mother-chaperones’ inner debutantes, and we had our party. It began with Austrian Dancing Master bellowing “SILENCE!” at the top of his lungs, which made everybody giggle.
The box step…
There followed an hour outside our collective comfort zone as the long line of young men and the shorter line of women watched the Dancing Master’s steps and tried to replicate them. The first figure was the box step, which wasn’t so bad, and then we were asked to pair up and dance it together. And as I was dancing, I looked to the left at all my earnestly dancing guests, and Anxiety disappeared. I realized then that everything was fine, and I had nothing to worry about except putting my feet in the right place.
There followed the Right Turn and then the Left Turn, danced to slow pop “waltzes” so saccharine that my partners and I blinked at each other. In vain did I ask for classical music, for whom we were not worthy or ready or something. It was Dancing Master’s first time teaching a dance class, so he was a bit harried. We both certainly learned a lot about teaching waltzing, and when we had our second party, I put (with their consent) big red stickers on all the ladies’ left shoulder blades to indicate Your Hand Here.
There was a 20-minute break for tea, coffee, squash and snacks, and then we learned—or at any rate were taught—how to transition between the Right Turn and the Left Turn. Those who had partners this time gave it the old college try, and then—after tumultuous applause for the Dancing Master and a kindly round for me—the party disintegrated into a montage of putting the tables back, washing all the dishes, and hoovering the cake crumbs. There was, you see, a Confirmation Class at 5 PM.
Afterwards my guests dispersed or stood outside the hall in a cozy group chatting, and after locking the hall I took Dancing Master out for a drink. Apparently six guests or so had asked that there be another waltzing party after Easter Sunday, so I thought—despite the demographic problem, which I swore to solve if it killed me—the party was a success.
Since that first Sunday Waltz Party in February 2023, I have hosted 14 subsequent Waltz Parties and organized, with a committee of young volunteers, two ticketed dances. We have learned not only the waltz, but a traditional Polish walking dance called the Polonez, as well as several Scottish ceilidh dances and such swing-dances as the 6-count, the 8-count and the Shim Sham. The parties proved so popular—and energetic—that in January 2024 we moved out of the parish hall and into a larger hall down the street. Happily, the demographic problem has been sorting itself out, thanks to young ladies coming to the party from other parts of Scotland.
I hope this website will both attract more tradition-minded Catholics to Mrs McLean’s Waltzing Party events in Edinburgh and encourage other Catholic married ladies d’un certain age to organize their own social dances for the young (and-not-so-young) Catholics of their communities.
Meanwhile, I would like to stress that—as is quite obvious—music and dance have a marked influence on not only the individual soul but the societies in which we live. For that reason, I would invite potential hostesses (and their potential guests) to consider not resorting to the noisy “disco” party after introducing their guests to traditional social dancing.
Dorothy McLean
August 31, 2024
FAQs
How experienced do I need to be?
No experience needed! Just put on your best evening-wedding togs and come to Ravelston Terrace for the 2024 Michaelmas Dance!
Will the dance steps be called out?
There will be a short introduction to the waltz’s box step, and all the ceilidh dances will be called.
Can I meet any of my fellow guests beforehand?
Certainly! There will be party at The Dean on Sunday, September 15, 2:30 PM – 5 PM, for all ticket holders. We’ll have a short review of the English waltz and then instruction in an assortment of the ceilidh dances. Afterwards there will be time for refreshments, waltz and swing practice, and chat. We’ll be in the smaller room, but have a sneak peak at Dean Main Hall, where the Michaelmas Dance will be.
I have another question…
Feel free to contact us with your question!
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