My visa arrived this week, so I am officially leaving the country come September 7th. There was very little doubt about this, but it still has a sense of reality that was lacking before. As part of my pre-departure plans, I have been doing some research into both U of Edinburgh student life and Scottish culture. Mom and I checked out some travel/culture books about Scotland that I've been looking through today, and as always the internet is a great resource.
I've been learning all sorts of interesting things, and thank's to a chapter on Robert Louis Stevenson (who is from Edinburgh!), I've been inspired to read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde this summer. One thing I've been looking at quite a bit is dance in Scotland. Unfortunately I've never made it to an SCD event in Boston, although I know there's an active group. From what I understand, Scottish Country Dancing is similar to Regency dance in that the figures use steps. I really enjoyed regency dance when I did some freshman year, so I'd love to give the Scottish version a try while I'm there!
Luckily for me, there's a very active dance group at the university. According to their website, the Edinburgh University New Scotland Country Dance Society "is a very active society. It counted over 150 members this year and its main aim is to promote Scottish culture through dancing. Throughout the year the society organises dance classes (in Ceilidh, Highland, Scottish Step and Scottish Country dancing), ceilidhs and balls. New Scotland also has strong links with Scottish country dance societies at other universities and regularly organises for its members to attend 'away dances' in locations such as St Andrews, Glasgow and Newcastle."
I'm excited to check out some classes and events for myself! I think I'm drawn to this style of dance partially because there is such a strong overlap with Vintage Dance here. The contra dances I've done at balls run by the Commonwealth Vintage Dancers are figure dances done at American nineteenth century social dances and events; the same way that SCD figures were done at similar events. The difference is that American ballrooms have really lost this, where in Scotland the dance tradition is still active. I think that's really neat-we'll see if that changes at all once I've experienced it first hand!
Here's a video of a Scottish Country Dance that looks very much like a 19th century quadrille...complete with figures I can recognize:
And a performance at Edinburgh Castle of the famous traditional Scottish dance, the Highland Fling:
Finally, a completely unrelated number called "My One and Only Highland Fling" from the 1949 Astair/Rogers movie The Barkleys of Broadway. Super cute.
