Youth projects should be complete this year.
Deb Lees, RSCDS Youth Director, looks back on a hectic six months. Young dancers have been very much part of many occasions. One highlight was the AGM weekend in November, where it was a delight to see Sophie and Maddy join the RSCDS Youth Team to dance their dance The Buttercup, proving that their younger age and shorter legs are no barrier to great dancing. The number of younger dancers from Europe and all over the UK attending the Newcastle Festival was very impressive and the standard of dance extremely high. The Fun – Dance – Technique weekend in Germany attracted a great crowd of young (and young at heart) dancers from Europe and world-wide. And I am very much looking forward to Spring Fling in Edinburgh
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A safeguarding children and vulnerable adults policy is available on the website and the pocket-sized Summary of Good Practice for teachers, musicians and helpers cards has been revised and reprinted. If you need copies for your branch or class please contact Headquarters.
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The Conference weekend was an opportunity for members from all over the world to share ideas and practice. Recruiting and retaining young dancers was the topic at the Teachers’ Association meeting, there was plenty of evidence of commitment and enthusiasm for providing opportunities to young dancers at the Dance Scottish discussion and Susan Rhodes gave an update on her work at the Youth Forum. It was interesting to see how many of the ideas from the previous Youth Forum were being incorporated into her work.
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And finally there is the Young Dancer Week at Summer School this year - an exciting new class for 12-15 year olds during week 3 (31st July to 7th August). Details are on the website.
this year, expecting the same energy and enthusiasm as in previous years. Apart from these events what else has been happening? ●
Around 450 to 500 children from all across the UK take RSCDS medal tests each year, with a large percentage from around Aberdeen. The teachers from that area should be very proud of the success of their classes. To meet the demand we have trained six new medal test assessors and I anticipate that we will need to train more shortly. The medal test syllabus is currently being revised to include dances from the new Graded Book and the paperwork is being reviewed. These
Throughout the Scottish dancing world there are active youth teams, who achieve a high standard and enjoy performing at events and festivals at home and overseas.
Established readers of Scottish Country Dancer will know about the Thornhill Dancers from Dumfries, Scotland. Their teacher, Sinclair Barbour, was interviewed in issue 8. The group frequently travels abroad, to Europe and the Far East and have plans to visit the Middle East this year. The photograph shows them in Bosnia last summer. The Inverglen Scottish Dancers were formed by Sophie Crosby in British Columbia, Canada in 1980. They have travelled to the UK, Australia and Singapore and are busy rehearsing for a trip to Aviles, Spain in July. Here we catch them performing at the Christmas Concert for senior citizens at the Kerrisdale Community Centre in Vancouver.
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In 2008 there was no snow in Méaudre, a village in the French Alps, so instead of skiing Sophie Marchand taught the local children French folk dancing and Scottish country dancing. Now she has two weekly classes, and this summer she is taking some of her dancers to Scotland. It will be a memorable experience for these young people, who enjoy Scotland’s dances but so far have no knowledge of the country.
