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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.

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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.

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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!

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From there we move to a modern classic from Miss Milligan's Miscellany of Scottish Country Dances, namely Hooper's Jig. There isn’t a lot to be said about this dance apart from the usual observation that the actual provenance of the dances in Miss Milligan’s Miscellany is often quite unclear. The tune for Hooper's Jig, though, is definitely modern: Peter's Peerie Boat by the late great Shetland fiddler, Tom Anderson.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.)
Smailholm Tower
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!

#NameTypeSetSource
1Gay Gordons Two StepX161RR(traditional): Collins Little
2Langshaw LassiesR323/4LBorder
3Hooper's JigJ323/4LMMM
4The Crooket-Horned EwieS323/4LRutherford: RSCDS XIV
5The Ferry LouperJ323/4LGoldring Graded 1
6The Flower of GlasgowS323/3LTaylor: RSCDS XLVI
7The BarmkinR884SGoldring: RSCDS Graded 2

See also the dance list in the Strathspey SCD Database.