Tutor’s Notes

On Monday we made a great start learning some of the dances from our Annual Dance Program

We started with the dance The Luckenbooth Brooch, which is the second dance on our program.

For those of you who were asking, Wikipedia says “the luckenbooth brooch is a traditional Scottish love token: often given as a betrothal or wedding brooch. It might be worn by a nursing mother as a charm to help her milk flow, and/or be pinned to a baby’s clothing to protect it from harm”. There are various designs of the brooch but they all have two interlocking hearts with a crown above them.

We then looked at our Pas de Basque and how we move forward and backwards with this step using the Jete and closing in 3rd in front whichever direction we are traveling using pas de basque. We learned the Pousette, a square formation for two couples in which you change places.

The words to help you remember this formation are “away from the centre, quarter turn, up or down, quarter turn, into the center, half a turn, retire and retire”

There is an excellent video of the formation here .

We danced Flowers of Edinburgh using the Pousette. This is not on our program but is a popular dance.

The more advanced dancers then danced The Water of Leith, a strathspey for 4 couples. This is one of the two most difficult dances on our program and we will do it again with more people another week. It would be good to watch the video of it in preparation. Water of Leith

Next up we all danced Juliet’s Reel a dance where the 1st couple are doing the same thing but at different times. I used the word syncopation to describe that but as Alice (in Wonderland) said “it didn’t sound at all the right word” (and in fact if you look up the definition it isn’t). Never mind.

Then we had a go at Auld Year’s Nicht a reel devised by Wellington devisor Iain Boyd and published just this year. This dance is on our program and also includes the pousette.

Finally we finished the night with the dance The Paisley Weavers

I was very impressed with everyone’s dancing over the night. There was a lot of unfamiliar dances and the brains were engaged right up until the end of the program.