Frankfurt Tuesdays (and Fridays)

The Herderschule

Originally the Frankfurt Scottish dancers met in the basement of the Goethe university’s cafeteria (see photograph). But shortly after the group was founded, Franziska arranged that the club could dance in the gymnasium of the Herderschule – Herder school, after German writer and philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) – near the Frankfurt zoo, which is where we still meet every Tuesday except during school holidays. The Frankfurter Tanzkreis had used the gymnasium, which now belongs to the IGS Herder, successor of the Herderschule, on Thursdays since long before the FSCDC was founded.

The dance nights were at first limited to two hours (from 8pm), but during the 1990s the available time was extended to three hours (from 7pm). This allowed us to divide the evening into an earlier instructional and a later social part.

We’re very happy that we managed to continue keeping the IGS Herder gymnasium as our dance venue even after the FSCDC e.V. was established as an independent association. This continues a 50-year tradition!

Dancing on Fridays: The “Dem Team”

Fairly soon after James Alexander took up teaching the FSCDC, a “demonstration team” was established which used to meet on Friday nights: At first they danced at the Haus der Jugend (the Frankfurt youth hostel) in the basement table-tennis room – but after a tape recorder was stolen from James’s car some time later, the dem team changed over to a room in the Anglican church on Miquelallee. It was based there until its dissolution circa 1974 – Claude and Peter Zensinger went to Berlin, Meinhard Reiser moved to Stuttgart, Chris and Colin went to Rome (they’re now living near Geneva and are active in the dance group there), Brigitte (“Gitte”) Lotzkat and Crichton moved to Bangladesh, Margaret Penny went away, Heidi married in the USA and Sharon in Darmstadt. Franziska, Liesl Otterbein, and Peter Bergschmidt stayed with the Frankfurt group.

Participation in the dem team was strictly at James’s discretion. As it normally consisted of only 4 to 6 couples there was considerable pressure to actually attend every Friday.

The dem team was maintained until approximately 1974. Today we no longer have a dedicated team, but – as far as possible – all dancers participate in performances of the group. We believe strongly in giving even less experienced dancers the opportunity to perform (perhaps not in at the very front) and gain experience – but of course nobody is being forced.

Currently performances do not play a big part in the work of our club, which does not mean we don’t enjoy putting them on! In many respects they are the “icing on the cake” which can provide an extra incentive especially to experienced dancers, but at the same time performance dancing is quite different from social dancing, and not everyone is strictly in favour, especially if it involves special rehearsals and having to learn choreographies by heart.