Tag: Mrs McLean’s Waltzing Party
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Our Fourth Annual Michaelmas Dance
There we have it! Mrs McLean’s Waltzing Party will be celebrating our Fourth Michaelmas Dance in September. In perhaps another six years, we can claim that it is not just traditional but a tradition. As I am now going to spend the next month trumpeting its delights abroad, I hope my knees improve to such…
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St. Louis in Edinburgh
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…
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“The Fair Assembly”: Social Dancing in Edinburgh from 1705
The best general history of social dancing in Scotland I have found so far is called Oh, How We Danced: The History of Ballroom Dancing in Scotland by Elizabeth Casciani (1994), and you will be able to find it in the Music department of the Edinburgh Central Library (GV1619) after I return it. Most, but…
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Dancing in the Old Town
Gavin Hamilton, Susanna Kennedy (1689-1780), Daughter of Sir Archibald Kennedy, 1st Bt of Culzean, 3rd Wife of Alexander Montgomery, 9th Earl of Eglinton, oil on canvas, The National Trust for Scotland, Culzean Castle, Garden & Country Park. She went to Edinburgh’s first Assemblies.
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The Queen of Ballroom Dances
The waltz as it is taught at Mrs McLean’s Waltzing Party was codified in England in 1927. The English Waltz reached that form after a campaign, immediately after World War I, by dance teachers and other aficionados in England to bring the waltz (or valse) back into fashion. They did this through ballroom dancing competitions…
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How to ask for a dance
Gentlemen tell me that asking a lady for a dance is difficult at first but easier with practice. At Mrs McLean’s Waltzing Party, we are old school, so waltz lessons involve the gentleman asking the lady to dance. Generally he does this by walking up to his chosen (or assigned) lady, holding out his right…