Tutor’s notes

A good night dancing on Monday. It was great to get two 4 couple sets. This allowed us to all take part in the dance MacDonald of Keppoch which is danced in a square set.
The dance is a Medley, being danced twice in strathspey time and then twice in reel time. It was much easier in strathspey as there is time to think, especially as the balance of speed between the quick and slow times on the recording is not ideal and the reel therefore very fast. Luckily we will have live musicians at our annual dance to sort that out for us.

But first up in the night we danced the more familiar Orpington Caledonians
This has a ladies chain in it, something we have practiced a lot this year and is looking good.

We also repeated Mrs McPherson of Inveran (R).
We focused on the transition between repeats of the dance, moving from the 6 hands around at the end to the Inveran Reels at the beginning of the repeat. Remembering that the couple at the bottom of the set needs to remain alert to dance in and up to join the reel.

We also danced Sugar Candie (S), a favourite of mine. This dance has turn corners and partner followed by reel of three with your corners, left shoulder to 1st corner to begin. It is important that the left hand turn with your partner is wide and then the reel starts with the dancing couple heading out the ends of the sets and then behind their first corner position. This is a very traditional formation but not one we have done much this year.

We then finished the night with a simple dance – Violynne (R) – involving mirror reels and a poussette.

We have now danced half of those off our dance programme in recent weeks and all but one of the less well known ones.
With two more weeks left to practice we will be right by the night. Do try to come along the next couple of weeks so you are more confident with the Annual Dance programme and can relax and enjoy it on the night.