Equal Opportunities Scottish Country Dancing

Don't Split the Ladies

This is a post about Scottish Country Dancing. It might turn in to a bit of a rant about it, actually. If you came for the picture of Chivers in his pirate getup then I'm sorry for misleading you, but thank you for the pageview.

There are 11 days to go before the Aurora Pirate Ball. A theme chosen at last year's afterparty whilst flying high on success, leftover falafel and a reasonable quantity of alcohol. It has, against all better judgement, somehow managed to sell out. Which makes me a very excited bunny.

Chivers doesn't have a ticket, but promises not to eat any of the food or clog up the dancefloor, so I think I might let him sneak in the back door.

God only knows what we'll come up with next year.

Disclaimer, from here on in, we're wading deep in the waters of Scottish Country Dancing. People who do other dance styles - I'd be interested to know if this is something that you've noticed too.

So we've all been there, I think. I shall set the scene.
It's a 4 couple dance. The last set in the row has three couples made up and needs one more. One of these three already-made-up couples consists of two ladies who have asked each other to dance. The only two remaining people in the room are both men.

This is what I think should happen:

Not-yet-dancing-man #1 to Not-yet-dancing-man #2: "Would you like to dance?"
Not-yet-dancing-man #2 to Not-yet-dancing-man #1: "Yes"
Not-yet-dancing-men #s 1 and 2 become 4th couple, one of them on the men's side and one on the ladies side. 
Nobody dies.

This is what actually happens:

Not-yet-dancing-man #1 to not-yet-dancing-man #2 and/or the MC: "We'll split the ladies."
Already-dancing ladies #s 1 and 2 (who asked each other to dance, remember) say nothing, but are manoeuvred on to the ladies side and plonked in front of new male partners. 

Because God forbid two grown men have to hold hands, and one of them has to do a bit more thinking.


Now as with any pursuit the size of SCD there's a whole spectrum of schools of thought on how to do things. And in some of those places I have some sway. In some I don't. I like to think I have the social skills to know which is which, and to know when to put up a fight and when not to.

Those places in which I am in a position of some sway, I like to use it. They tend to be the University class and at Aurora - an independent club in Aberdeenshire. I mentally picture these places are the laid-back liberal side of SCD.

One of both the joys and the downfalls of University-circuit dancing is that each September you're faced with a whole new crop of keen newbies all ready to find out about what this Scottish Dancing thing is. They don't necessarily know what it "right" or "normal" or "the done thing". So this is how I sell it.

This is a traditional form of dance. I skip over the Miss Milligan years because I'm not sure what I make of them, but that's another topic for another day. This has come from a place where this is what you go out and do of an evening. Your local hall, and some local musicians, and everyone dances with everyone else. Regional variations abound. There are no pointy toes and matching costumes. This is the original social network. The dance form is pretty ancient in origin, and since then we've been re-writing it, and tweaking bits, and adding bits as we see fit, because that's actually what tradition means. It's organic. If a thing someone thought of was good, it stuck. If it wasn't any good, it got forgotten. Someone writes a dance, tries it out, if it's fun it gets picked up, and it travels around, and all of a sudden it's a classic. We've turned Miss Milligan's creation back in to a folk art by quite literally voting with our feet.

I quite enjoy it, you may guess.

So those of us who are here and currently practising SCD get a shot at looking after it and leaving our own stamp. But we can't and shouldn't hide the fact that the style comes from a time when the men would dance with the ladies and that was that. As the dancing population somehow skewed over to a surplus of women, we learned to dance with each other.

How do you take that and add a modern, equal opportunities stamp? How do we make this really fun thing open and available and welcoming to to people who may not identify 100% with one side or the other?

Here's my take.

There's the two sides. The people on the mens' side have their left shoulder to the band/stereo/top, the people on the ladies side their right. That's what the sides and the places and the positions are called, because it's true. We're not leading or following as such, so those terms never really felt like they fitted.

Step 1. Ask anyone in the room to dance with you. If they say yes, then you've got the next dance, you lucky sod.

Step 2. If one of you fancies dancing on the mens' side and one of you fancies dancing on the ladies' side, do that. If the two of you are of the same gender, go for the side that's closest.

Step 3. Enjoy the damn dance!

Simples.