Celebration of Culture
Yellowknife group
Members of Edmonton (Canada) Caledonian Branch were invited to take part in the 30th anniversary of the Metis dancers in Alberta and the Northwest Territories. Louise McGillivray describes the muticultural celebration. In June 2015, members of Edmonton (Canada) Caledonian Branch participated in two shows celebrating the role of Scottish dancing in the dancing of the Metis culture. The Metis (whose culture is a mixture of First Nations and European, primarily Scottish and French) have incorporated elements of all those cultures into their music and dancing. The Edmonton Metis dancers, celebrating their 30 year anniversary this year, invited Scottish, French and First Nations dancers to join in a gala anniversary celebration concert at the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton on June 16th. Both adult and youth members of the Edmonton Caledonian branch participated in that concert, following several rehearsals with the Metis dancers.
dance, performed to fiddle music. That dance included (in our terminology) a grand chain (which the Metis call weaving the sash) and an allemande hold as we danced off the stage. The Scottish dancers also joined with the Metis dancers – doing one of their favourites – Drops of Brandy. That dance? It was Strip the Willow to us! A common sight during this entire process was dancers in little groups comparing steps, learning each other’s steps, and admiring the various traditional attire and styles of clothing. Safe to say, the most elaborate outfits were those of the First Nations – our bright shirts and tartan sashes simply couldn’t compete with eagle-feather headdresses and deer skin tunics! The Scottish country dancers performed several medleys to profile the scope of
SCD – our strathspey step being quite unique among the dancers. The Metis do many of their dances to lively jig music which is very familiar to us. One of our dances included couples in promenade hold, dancing a reel of three. Who knew that we were also forming the infinity symbol as we danced? That exact same figure is done by the Metis dancers – to honour the infinity sign which symbolizes both the existence of the Metis people forever, and the coming together of the cultures that make up the Metis people. The Metis flag has a blue background with a white infinity symbol (highly evocative of the saltire). We even had one of our dancers (a former Highland dancer) join a Metis lad in a sword dance to complement his “belt dance” (an obvious take-off from the Scottish sword dance). The trip to Yellowknife for all the dancers was sponsored by the North Slave Metis Alliance – which paid airfare, hotels, meals, and even provided an honorarium for our branch. We felt very special and pampered – and the warm and welcoming reception we received from the 3000+ audience was very gratifying. There is a very small (but very keen) SCD group in Yellowknife and we were able to include one of their dancers in our performance. And those Yellowknife SCD dancers toured us all around – showing us the sights, making sure we ate fresh caught whitefish at a popular local restaurant, and were taken to the best store to buy moccasins and mukluks (fur boots). The dancers thoroughly enjoyed the cultural exchange, friendship and excitement of visiting Yellowknife – a never to be forgotten experience. And best of all, we’ve been told that they enjoyed our dancing so much that they want us to come back next year!
On June 20th, six Edmonton Scottish country dancers joined the Metis and First Nations dancers in a special celebration of culture in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories for National Aboriginal Day. Yellowknife is located on the north shore of Great Slave Lake, 1500 km north of Edmonton and 400 km south of the Arctic Circle. In Yellowknife, at the summer solstice (June 21st) the sun sets near midnight and rises at about 3 a.m. It doesn’t really get completely dark! That’s why northern Canada is often called The Land of the Midnight Sun. At both shows, the different cultures separately performed their dances, and also participated in dances involving dancers from all the cultures. One dance began with a First Nation Friendship Dance (a round dance danced to drums and singing) and then moved into a Metis
Grand Change Metis style
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