Celtic Connections and Research Group

The Society sponsors one of the three ceilidhs that take place during the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow each year. John Carswell MC’d this year’s RSCDS Ceilidh Dance. For over 30 years John has brought Scottish dancing to thousands of the general public via Scotch Hop – Scottish dancing for all during the summer, held in the courtyard of Linlithgow Palace.

Celtic Connections is a large, well established folk festival held every year in the centre of Glasgow in the second half of January. It has a ‘programme of over 300 events that seek to shine a bright light on the blossoming vibrant roots music scene from across Scotland and the four corners of the world’. However, it includes very little dancing. It uses a wide variety of venues, from the Glasgow Concert Hall to refurbished churches and small venues for ‘come and try workshops’. This was the sixth year the RSCDS was involved – running a celidh dance in the Maryhill Community Centre, a former Methodist church which originally had a gallery and now has a concrete floor put in at that level to fill the gap, but still with the seating, making it look a little like an ice rink! The building is very run-down, but having heating and more lighting than last year was a big help. This is not an RSCDS event, but we decide the programme, the band and the MC. We had a wonderful full hall of 275 keen, lively, mainly young dancers plus several members, some of whom had come quite a distance. As it was a one-off event, it was a fairly basic dance programme but we had an Eightsome Reel, a Jacky Tar Two-step, a Gypsy Tap, The Riverside, Marches Hop (Social Swing) and the Martainn Maryhill Mixer. The band choice was for a Highland Schottische. I was delighted to be MC-ing with the Martainn Skene Highland Dance Band – accordion, fiddle, keyboard and drums. They have a great lively sound with plenty of lift and good sets of tunes. It would be good if the RSCDS could become more involved in the Celtic Connections festival as well as other national events. After all, Scottish social dancing is just as important as RSCDS-style dancing. John D Carswell, Linlithgow

Research Group

Research into dances and music was one of the original aims of the Society, much easier now than it was in 1923. Peter Knapman gives the background to the new Research Group.

Why do we dance Scottish?

To have fun? To enjoy the music and the choreography? To tradition is, and what, if anything, is valuable or important about continuing it. The Manual talks about ‘a living and growing tradition’ and also ‘remaining faithful to the essential spirit of the tradition which inspired our founders’.

Are we being faithful to the tradition?

How do we know if we are remaining faithful to the tradition of Scottish dancing in earlier centuries? One way is to undertake research. Some research was carried out in our early years, but it was limited to what was available and conversations with older people. Today we are far removed from the period where there is any ‘folk memory’ of the pre-1923 era, but we have access to a far wider range of historical country dance documents: dance descriptions, how formations and steps were danced and the music that was used.

Why do research?

Many of us are interested in ‘how we got to here’. Dancing an old dance can be a bit like travelling in time. It evokes emotions and wakens memories, but it also connects us to people and communities who played and shared the dances and music in another time. There has been a tendency to value our tradition only since 1923. Our group would like to take a broader and longer historical approach.

Our remit

The Management Board agreed the following topics were relevant:

Revisiting earlier RSCDS dances to improve our understanding and interpretation. Many have fallen out of the repertoire, often continue the tradition? The last raises questions about what as a result of a partial understanding of the source.

Researching previously unpublished historical dances with a view to publishing some of the more interesting.

Researching dance technique in the light of modern practice. l

Exploring Quadrilles and their impact on Scotland.

Outcomes

Research is of limited value unless there are outcomes. We propose to share our results by means of:

Publishing books with alternative versions of some of our older dances. l Articles in Scottish Country Dancer.

Talks at the Autumn Gathering, and Summer and Winter Schools.

Blog pages on the Website.

Research in context

Country dancing in Scotland has always been an evolving tradition. Social dancing from the early 1700s until 1923 saw many changes in both repertoire and style. Whatever the outcomes of our research, we should not delude ourselves into believing that what and how we dance is or can ever be the same as was danced in previous generations. All we can do is try to understand the past so that we can shape and interpret what and how we dance today. It is also worth remembering that there cannot be, nor should there be, a single and uniquely right way of interpreting what was a cultural activity. The members appointed as the initial core group are Peter Knapman, Alan Macpherson, Jimmie Hill, and Marilyn Healy.