RSCDS Annual Meeting in Glasgow: A report November 2022
Former RSCDS Chair Helen Russell wearing the chain that now hangs around the neck of William Williamson; with RSCDS Honorary President Jean Martin and in a blue dress Linda Williamson, née Miss Graham of Dykeside (S8x32) 3C (4C set).
William Williamson, the Society’s new Chairman, launched the RSCDS Centenary Year in Glasgow at the AGM on November 5th during the Autumn Gathering. This was my very first time to attend an AGM, after 55 years as a member of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society. Well, it is not easy to visit Scotland in November when you live in West Africa or the Eastern United States (not to mention Afghanistan, or Cambodia). But on this occasion I travelled up from Brittany, taking the overnight Megabus from London to Glasgow’s Buchanan St Bus Station.
My old St Andrews friend Tom Mitford very kindly met my bus at 7am, and walked me to his comfortable apartment five minutes away. Tom is not a dancer, but I forgive him because he is a piper. Anyone who plays the bagpipes is making a genuine contribution to Celtic Culture. Thankfully, Tom played the piano while I was staying with him, rather than the pipes. The bagpipes are best enjoyed out of doors, or in a large hall. Tom is very droll. He told me that when he arrived (30 years ago), he warned the lady downstairs that she might hear his baby grand piano. “I was hoping she might say how much she enjoyed hearing me playing my piano. Instead of which, she reassured me that her parents were deaf and my piano playing would not trouble them.”
This Dancing Hippo cartoon by artist Sara Butts is not quite a portrait of my friend Tom; more a reminder that you can read my dancing blog at: https://robinpoulton.com/dancing and past numbers of my Dancing Hippo Newsletter at https://us4.campaign-archive.com/home/?id=bf842aa818&u=17685cca38dbf82bb5f14e53b
DANCING
In Glasgow we danced Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The dancing was good, and I met plenty of Summer School friends. It would be tedious to tell you everything. Let me pick a few dances.
Friday’s first dance was Hooper’s Jig, a great favourite of mine that starts with a CLAP. The music by Màrtainn Skene's Boy Band! was great. You can see Hooper’s Jig here : https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100057180471373 The evening’s best Strathspeys were The Sauchie Haugh and City of Belfast. The latter has beautiful music, flowing moves and the espagnol to end with. The Sauchie Haugh has everything: rondel, opening circles, a diamond poussette. Most YouTube demos seem to show Hungarian or Russian dancers (!) doing better that the two Canadian demos on https://www.scottish-country-dancing-dictionary.com/video/sauchie-haugh.html
"Sauchie Haugh" is Scots for "willow bank" or "low-lying ground or meadow covered with willow trees". The Kelvin Hall where we danced is on Sauchiehall Street (once a water meadow) where you can find "The Willow Tearooms" designed in 1904 by that famous architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh, whose nature-inspired furniture I also admired in two local museums.
Saturday was the formal Ball with Susan McFadyean’s Girl Band: a bunch of very talented and joyful young women. You can hear her play some Tunes in the Hoose reels here, though this is a gender mix reminding us of the pandemic era: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1102523943457713
I danced Scottish Reform as first couple with a lady called Morven. The dance is for two couples, so we danced the poussette three times. At the end of the dance, my partner said “great poussettes” …. I agreed, and went away beaming. Hurrah! that I can still dance a decent poussette.
There were 300 dancers at the Ball. A couple more dances: I loved the tricky strathspey Autumn in Appin and the dynamic Countess of Dunmore’s Reel, dances I rarely get to enjoy. This Hungarian version of Autumn in Appin is exquisite and their hall seems especially designed for this dance: https://www.scottish-country-dancing-dictionary.com/video/autumn-in-appin.html
Sunday we had two sessions: a lecture (with music) about dances through the decades by the fabulous Angela Young and a dance class by Kate Gentles from Cambridge. Kate had us dance a Highland Schottische Poussette, which reminded me how unspringy my ankles are these days. I no longer show Highland steps, unless it is to wheelchair-users in an old people’s home. Now I was dancing with the fabulous Grace Hill, who had been one of my teachers at Summer School. She was kind enough to say that she remembered me and that I “was fun” ….. compliment enough to keep me happy until the New Year.
Why not attend Winter School in Pitlochry 19-24 Feb 2023? Or Summer School in St Andrews 16 July – 13 August 2023? or come to our Breton Branch Scottish Weekend in Josselin, a beautiful medieval city in central Brittany: weekend of 17th September 2023. Maybe I’ll see you there !
https://scottishweekend.fr/fr/ OR https://scottishweekend.fr/en/
CHOOSE YOUR LANGUAGE.
Here is a picture of our late Patron, H.M. The Queen visiting the RSCDS headquarters in Coates Crescent, EH3 7AF. I learned that the dance The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh can be danced with skipchange instead of pas de basque: because the beautiful Princess Elizabeth enjoyed mastering the dance but her handsome husband could not get the hang of the pas de basque.
This was the first AGM I have attended since I joined the Society in 1967. William Williamson – the new Chair - challenged us all to take risks and to do things differently. Are RSCDS teachers too critical, he asked? Too academic? Too SNOB? We need to be a Broad Church and accept every type of dancing. Ceilidh dancing is also Scottish dancing! Do we teach in the right places and at the right time? If “we always did it this way”…. well perhaps it is time for a change!
Are we selling ourselves as a Society of Friendship and Entertainment? Scottish Dancers are a Dancing Family, providing a very cheap social evening to meet friends and have fun. Having FUN is more important that perfecting our pas de basque. If you smile, square your shoulders and control the top half of your body, then no one will notice your feet.
”Put service before self,” William told us: “No one has a monopoly of wisdom. Those who serve will be remembered after those who cling to power are forgotten.”
Famous people received Scrolls of Honour: Keith Rose (left photo) whose diagrams we see every week; Mo Rutherford (right photo), former RSCDS Music Director whose music I loved in Perth Town Hall; and Ann Taylor, a stalwart of RSCDS admin who used to teach Highland Dance in Stornaway. There was protest that the out-going Chair spent ₤5000 on external legal advice when there are dozens of dancing lawyers costing nothing. And there was concern because Covid forced the Society to dip deep into the reserves, especially with UK post-Brexit inflation running at 10%.
Two decisions concern RSCDS Branches:
- individual membership fees will rise next June 2023 from ₤25 to ₤26 (and pro-rata)
- a new Junior Membership category is created for under 12s, for a cost of ₤0.00.
I spoke favorably to this second motion, saying it was 20 or 30 years overdue; and I described how in Brittany we are trying to reach school teachers and English classes for young people. Several people came up to me later to express support for what I had said.
Then at the Youth Services Meeting, I gained an insight: children have so many commitments these days that “classes” are not the best way to attract them to Scottish dance. Better to use Ceilidhs, workshops, or a weekend school. Scotland is different from the rest of the world: SCD should be taught in every school. That obviously ain’t going to happen in France or USA. In France, I try to link SCD to the learning of the English language. In-school class teaching for 9-year-olds (CM 1&2) works. I teach vocabulary, maps, a song or two (Ten Green Bottles is a good one) and a couple of dances: I favor The Cumberland Reel, The Virginia Reel and Thread The Needle.
FRIENDS OF THE RSCDS
The new Treasurer of RSCDS is Ms Elizabeth Conder. Lizzie – dancer and teacher and CPA - ran the St Andrews University Celtic Society a few decades after I used to run it. Her impressive CV can be read here: https://cweb1.clare.cam.ac.uk/news/news.php?name=2022080826
The Friends of RSCDS was launched by Treasurer Lizzie Conder with Jason, the new RSCDS Marketing Manager who comes to us from Abbotsford, home of Sir Walter Scott. This initiative will allow former dancers, current dancers, non-dancers, musicians, and people who value Scotland’s cultural traditions to support the Society in the post-Covid era. I shall join the Friends of RSCDS with a modest annual contribution to support our dance community. If I can do it, so can you!
Best wishes to all my dancing friends.
Happy Thanksgiving
Happy Xmas
Happy Hogmanay!
Robin
P.S. My amusing book I Dance Therefore I Am is the perfect Xmas gift for RSCDS people, for your secret lover, for anyone who knows Scotland or St Andrews …. available on Amazon. The cover shows a family Ceilidh at my brother’s wedding. My kids are in front; my brother Rory behind with his wife Maureen; and my parents are dancing off into the distance, bless them!
They taught me to dance, giving me a lifetime of pleasure.
