7 December 2015 – Scotia

The prep is mostly over! Yay! And in my delight I taxed the mental prowess of my dancers. No complaints but a gentle comment from a fellow teacher a few days later.

Deborah was working on pas de basque and Set to Corner-Partner (Hello-Goodbye).
I found a John Drewry dance with that in it and it didn't seem overly difficult (yeah right!) and Drewry Night was over and why not?

Dances taught were:

Sla'ine's Fancy  –  (32 J 3)  – Let's All Dance 2
un-named dance  –  (32 R 3)  – Leary
Da Rain Dancin'  –  (32 R 3)  –  Wallace

Driving Through Eutaw  –  (32 J 3)  – Leary
Drumduan Cottage  –  (32 S 3)  –  Drewry
Orpington Caledonians –  (32 R 3)  –  Bk 49
Eggemoggin Reach  –  (32 J 3)  – Price
Dragonflies  –  (32 S 5dancers)  –  Lataille

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Sla'ine's Fancy:- aka The Spinning Wheel. Nice baby dance. Thumbs up.

Un-named dance:- written to make Set to Corner-Partner the only issue. It worked. I suspect it has been written before and more than once.
RA ; LA :: set, cast ; dance between 3C cast up to corners :: Set C-P :: 6 hands round and back ::

Da Rain Dancin':- Golden Gillie! This is an ok dance to fabulous music and that makes it a hit.
With the correct music I would dance it anytime anywhere. Any other music -  forget about it.

Driving Through Eutaw:- By Deborah, while driving on the long stretch of Interstate highway in Alabama. We were playing the Marian Anderson CD  of Robert Burns dances and tunes. The dancers in her head came up with this.  A nice little dance but with a bit of asymmetry that makes for a little more thinkum than usual for a simple jig. The last time it was taught it was fairly ugly. This time much much nicer.

Drumduan Cottage:- Look it up (Canadian Book). I asked afterwards if there was any redeeming social value to the dance. I got a  yes - it keeps the dancers thinking out of the box. That is not a resounding positive response.

Me, I liked the Corners Pass & Turn in this dance. The usual track has corners dancing in, turning RH half round and dancing back out to place. The actives dance round, pass right shoulders in the middle and dance on. Nice but there is not much spice to it. Here the figure starts facing 2nd corners, the active couple dance round and have a very zesty turn to face first corners. I like! He uses this pattern in Miss Florence Adams (Bk 38). I like it there too. No one else seems to adopted it and I have to wonder why. It ups the level nicely and pleasantly but not by too much.

Orpington Caledonians:- Another thumbs up from the floor. I like it enough that I put it on The Kilts and Ghillies program for this May. The Fair Haven Heights class gave it a Golden Ghillie.

Eggemoggun Reach:- I did it again here because I really need a fair test. The dancers in New Haven are too good. I needed it done by a set of representative dancers.

It is trickier than I thought and needs careful/thorough teaching. For some reason the 4 bar turns following the half reels seems to short circuit the brains.

Emphasis - four bar turns start on side lines, end on side lines. Don't hold hands too long!
Stay with the music. When the dancers are on it shines! When they are even just a little off it gets ugly.

Dragonflies:-Oh I just love this one! I use Susie Petrov's 5x32 set of strathspeys from her album Hold the Lass Till I Get Her. The music is lovely and the tunes work with the dance… the room seems to get quieter for some reason. In my top 10.