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26 April 2022: Back to Basics
The Easter holidays are over, and the “2nd Quarter” begins – a long
haul until mid-July! We’re starting out with a guest and a few basic
movements.
Today we’re welcoming Ute (Schorsch’s senior-citizen dance teacher),
self-avowed Scotland fan and keen to try what we’re doing. Unfortunely
we’re only six people (excluding the teacher), hopefully that will
improve during the next few weeks.
After the warmups, we’re starting with a round of the Gay Gordons Two Step – not to be confused with the “genuine” Gay Gordons, but much simpler and quicker to explain! The canonical
recording for this dance is by Sandy Nixon and his band and
contains, as an Easter egg (?), for whatever reason, the Canadian
national anthem, O Canada.
Next there is a skip-change-of-step exercise and a few turns by the
right and left hand, in four bars, once and once and a half times
round, before we apply ourselves To the dance, Langshaw Lassies. This is from the Border Dance Book – published by
the RSCDS in the early 1930s, with dances from the south of
Scotland. Back then the Society still watched people dancing in the
country side or had them explain dances that they had learned in their
youth. “Langshaw Lassies” isn’t the original name of the tune because,
as the book explains, that was “forgotten by the old shepherd from
whom [the dance] was collected”. What bad luck.
The dance itself involves almost exclusively the 1st couple – the 2nd
and 3rd couples are confined to “three claps, three stomps” (and one
move-up for the 2nd couple). But that way the dancing couple can
concentrate way better on their turns. In spite of that, probably not
a real candidate for the next ball programme!
Contrary to what one might assume, The Crooket-Horned Ewie does
not refer to a wool-giving farm animal with a crooked horn, but –
Scotland being Scotland – is an affectionate slang term for an illicit
whisky still (after the bent head of the still pot). Manufacturing
whisky without remitting the proper taxes used to be a popular pastime
in Scotland, and whoever called such a little sheep their own had to
be constantly on the lookout for the “gaugers”, the tax and excise
officials whose job it was to put a stop to unlawful whisky
distilling. Every so often one would have to grab everything and flee
when the taxmen approached. – The dance, a strathspey, dates from the
18th century and may be somewhat repetitive, but gets by with
strathspey travelling step and simple formations and is therefore very
suitable for newbies, while more advanced dancers will find enough
opportunity to work on precision.
After the break, we continue with Roy Goldring's jig,
The Ferry Louper. In Orkney, a “ferry louper” is somebody who
resides on the islands but wasn’t born there, i.e., they came on the
ferry across the Pentland Firth. This dance was first published in
Goldring’s collection of 24 Graded and Social Dances, a trove of simple (or at least
manageable) dances, some of which occur on social programmes time and
again. The “Ferry Louper” requires neat phrasing and seamless
transitions from one formation to the next.
A dance for advanced dancers – with a “circulating allemande” and a
strathspey poussette – is The Flower of Glasgow by
Ruth Taylor (from Canada), published 2010 in the Society’s
Book 46. (In 2012, the “German Team” at the Newcastle
Festival performed a choreography of dances from Book 46; more details
about this are
here.)
Hence extra kudos to Ute for taking this on! But for an experienced
folk-dance teacher this is really a piece of cake.
To finish, another dance by Roy Goldring: Like The Ferry Louper, the dance was originally printed in 24 Graded and Social Dances, but has
been republished by the RSCDS in A Second Book of Graded Scottish Country Dances. The dance is an 88-bar reel in a square set and
follows the common pattern “the head couples do something and then the
side couples repeat it”, which takes us through the first 64 bars of
the dance. (After that there is a small solo for the ladies and
another one for the men, and then a circle for everyone.)
Incidentally, a “barmkin” is a part of a medieval castle or fortified
manor house, generally a walled-off area behind the outer wall, which
was used, e.g., to protect cattle from reivers. The photo shows
Smailholm Tower near Kelso in the Borders; the barmkin’s wall in the
foreground.
In spite of the somewhat “manageable” numbers, tonight’s class was a
good start to the “summer of dancing”. We do hope that attendance will
improve!