CEILIDH DANCING is also Scottish Dancing !
Ceilidh dancing at St Andrew’s Night in Ploumagoar with my Maclean kilt and tartan stockings dominating the picture.
Scottish dancing has many different formats
There are snobs everywhere, and I hope I am not one of them. Ceilidhs do not offer top-level dancing. Nor are Ceilidh dancers always elegant, and sometimes they are drunk! But Ceilidhs are fun. Definition: a Ceilidh is a Scottish party with any combination of music, dance, singing and storytelling.
My ideal evening is filled with Scottish Ballroom Dances carefully choreographed from RSCDS Books 1-52: they are more satisfying, and more precise than the riotous party dances of a Ceilidh. But in Scotland there is room for everyone.
Ceilidh dances have their place in Scottish culture …. at a wedding party or during a CEILIDH of Scottish song and dance and story-telling. In my picture – taken at St Andrew’s Night 2021 in Ploumagoar, my Maclean kilt and tartan stockings dominate the picture. These stockings were hand-knitted by my lovely sister Alana for my 21st birthday. Yes, I have taken great care of them. They are only taken out of the drawer and worn at occasional parties.
Simple Ceilidh dances may be a good way to introduce people to better Scottish dancing. In Pordic (Brittany, in NW France) we started Ceilidh dancing at a Burns Night. If you do not have a set of experienced dancers for an Eightsome Reel (a reel, as its name suggests) or a Monymusk (a slower, stately strathspey), then you can form two rows of dancers and have them run along under the arches of a Cumberland Reel and a Virginia Reel; or get them to hold hands in a line to Thread The Needle; or swing them down the lines of a Strip the Willow which requires a slightly higher level of skill. For the latter dance, the FIRST skill requirement is to distinguish your RIGHT arm from your LEFT. It is remarkable how many people find that a challenge!
The simplest and most elegant of CEILIDH dances are in waltz time: the Waltz Country Dance, St Bernard’s Waltz, the Pride of Erin Waltz, the Veleta …. All easy to learn and easy to dance.
And the Gay Gordons, which is danced as a march. Here are my children dancing the Gay Gordons in the 1980s. And my brother Rory and sister-in-law Maureen dancing behind them on the left of my photo.
In Pordic we are slowly progressing from Ceilidh towards the dance floor: using circle dances with simple formations like the figure of eight around standing partners; like promenading around the circle as a couple; turning with right and left hands in time to the music (which means LISTENING to the music and counting up to eight …. another challenge for some people). And of course, the circle is already a formation! Try The Circassian Circle, The Loch Ness Monster or The Hourglass.
And I am trying to teach the simple Strathspey Seann Truibhas Willichan. The meaning of that title concerns Little Willie, who has removed his trews in favour of the kilt, now that he has returned home to the Highlands and Islands during the late 18th century, a time when the brutal English rulers and their Campbell henchmen were crushing Highland culture, outlawing tartans and the kilt, and expelling tens of thousands of Highlanders from Scotland towards the unknown and unfriendly wilds of Nova Scotia, Virginia or Carolina. Where they survived!
Here is a picture of dancing women in Pordic being gypsies.
I have a dream:
That One Day during the Year 2022, my Ceilidh dancers will be able to dance Monymusk, Postie’s Jig and Trip to Bavaria.
Happy Hogmanay 2022 to everyone !