26 February 2019_New Haven

Ball season has arrived - Upcoming are The New Haven Highland Ball Weekend; The NJ Rerr Terr; Kilts and Ghillies Tea Dance; Pawling Weekend and then summer.

The dances I taught were:-

Bethankit  –  (32 J 3)  –  Stacey -RSCDS 3rd Graded
Left-Handed Fiddler  –  (32 R 3)  –  Lasnik
Miss Florence Adams  –  (32 S 3)  –  Drewry - Bk 38/7
Sunshine and Sweetie's Jig  –  (32 J 3)  –  Bk 48/7
Born to Dance  –  (32 J 3)  –  Collin: From Paper to Pearl

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Bethankit:- "and the good Lord bethankit" - nice easy (if reels are easy) gentle starter.

Miss Florence Adams:- Because it long past time to reintroduce it!

I included this on a New Haven Ball shortly after it was published and all I got was a load of s**t! "Too Hard" was the kindest comment. And not the dance - the whole program! Looking back on that program I can see that it was, well… staid and boring at best. This was the only difficult dance on the program but it stained the whole evening. And I now can see why they thought that.

Firstly - it was a Drewry dance and we know that all Drewry dances are hard.
Secondly- it included a  NEW figure. Set and Link, just invented and a lot of it. Thumbs down!
Thirdly- it had yet another NEW figure - Corners Pass & Turn. Double thumbs down!!
Fourthly- that combination had a synergy that added up to NOT good.

And most of those dancers haven't danced it since. They "know" how hard a dance it is and would not!

Twenty years later how many dances now include Set & Link? How many times have you done Corners Pass & Turn? How hard is this dance with all that experience under your belt?
I was just ahead of my time.