Tag: ceilidh dance

barn dance, Carharrack, ceilidh, classes, community, dance instructions

Ceilidh class notes (21/11/23)

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Somewhat international this time, with a Danish dance mocking the Swedes and danced in Scotland, two American dances and an English barn dance, as well as one of my own.

Jonny’s Birthday Reel

We started the class with an easy longways set for as many as want to join in, one devised at a birthday party earlier this year for Jonny who liked dances with arches. Still not caught it one video, but you can read about it here.

Swedish Masquerade

This dance was a request at our last Rosevilles public ceilidh – so the band have learned the tune and ready to dance it on December 8th.

The Swedish Masquerade is a fairly common ceilidh dance in Scotland. It isn’t Scottish and it isn’t Swedish. It is purported to be Danish. A similar dance is danced across Scandinavia and in Germany.

The distinguishing characteristics of the Swedish Masquerade are the three sections – a 4/4/ march, a waltz and a polka (or hopsa). The walking section allows for some pantomime as the Danes make fun of the Swedes, with exaggerated proper dancing.

With 3 walking steps and turn, repeat, twice, to start with.
With 7 walking steps and turn, then back, to start with

This next video breaks the dance down into sections and has a fun variations with hands together as you balance (or pas de basque) away and together in the middle waltz section, and with a kick in the polka section. Despite what the presenter says the waltz section is not in 4/4 but is in 3/4 as a waltz should be!

Snowball

Since the winter has started to reach Cornwall I thought we’d do this wintery sounding English style barndance written by Martin Hodges. Snowball refers to the gradual increase in the number of the dancers with each 16 beats of the music. It’s a good one for early in a ceilidh to teach a few basic moves. With 5 couples in the dance it is a bit longer than many dances – you’ll need a 48 bar jig for this one.

Polka Dots

I enjoy dances that are a bit different. This one is excellent for not needing to have a partner at all – you dance as a group of 5 and you dance with everyone in the group. It is also great practice for a reel of three figure, or if you prefer you can do si do.

I found it in a book called ‘Barn Dance Hoedown’ by the Ring O’Bells band and haven’t found any videos of it yet. So, here is a summary of the dance:

Arrange yourselves like the dots on the 5 side of a dice: 4 people each standing in the corner of a square, one person standing in the middle.

Photo by Jonathan Petersson on Pexels.com

First half of the dance:

A1: The person in the middle initially faces the person nearest the band (with their back to the band), and then next with the person directly opposite (facing the band) – these three dancers form a line aligned up and down the dance hall from the band to the end of the room. The original dance involves these three dancing a reel of three together (see notes from the last class), but to make it simpler for beginners or dancers at a ceilidh, I suggest dancing a do si do with the first person, then turning and dancing do si do with the second person in this line. This takes 16 beats.

A2: After this, repeat this figure with the other two dancers (aligned across the dance hall). This takes another 16 beats.

Second half of the dance:

B1: The same dancer is still in the middle, and they again face the person who has their back to the band. With this person, set (jump right, jump left), then turn that person by a half turn using the right arm, so that they are in the middle and you take their place. This takes 8 beats.

This person then does the same with the next person around the formation – set then half turn to swap places. Another 8 beats.

B2: The third dancer now dances sets and half turns to swap places with the next person in the formation. 8 beats. And that fourth person does the same with the final fifth person. Final 8 beats.

The fifth person is now in the middle ready to start the dance again.

Sashay the Donut

This is one of my favourite first dances for a wedding, starting with the newly wed couple leading the dance. It is very similar to the first half of a Virginia Reel bent around in a circle formation – personally I think it is a dough ring rather than a doughnut. See what I mean here:

The dance is from this book of the same name, and is Anglo-American in origin.

What’s next? Some dates for your diaries

Our last class on the autumn term of ceilidh classes is tomorrow, Tuesday 5th December. Do join us – we’ll have a couple of new dances and some refreshers! Feel free to make requests.

Then, we have our Christmas-ish ceilidh on Friday 8th December with The Rosevilles Ceilidh Band. If you get your ticket at the class tomorrow, that is the cheapest way, otherwise, £5+fees on eventbrite or £7.50 on the door – whichever way it is excellent value for an evening of happy, upbeat music, fun dancing that everyone can join in with and an evening in a gathering of friendly folk. Hope to see you there.

We’re then taking a wee break over the holiday time, but back on Thursday 28th December for a free ceilidh workshop (19:30 – 21:00) at Carharrack Social Club, with some guest contributions of Cornish dancing alongside our other ceilidh-ish plans.

And, how fast time has flown, our next term will start on 9th January, and run fortnightly until the end of March. All welcome. No experience or partner needed! £5 per class or a bit cheaper if you block book.

Do pop these all in your diaries please – booking coming soon!

Carharrack, ceilidh, classes, community, dance instructions, Uncategorized

Ceilidh class notes (07/11/23)

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So many lovely dances and dancers on the 7th November – thanks so much for joining us! This was class 5 of 7, so two more left before our end of term ceilidh.

Interested in joining us for a Christmas-ish celebration? If so, the cheapest way to buy a ticket is in our classes (21st November and 5th December) – tickets there are £5/adult – it costs a bit more on Eventbrite due to the Eventbrite booking fees, and a bit more again in person on the door, but still a good value night out (£7.50).

Register on Eventbrite

Bring the whole family – accompanied under 16s have free entry (but still book a ticket please so we can estimate numbers).

Holmfirth Square

Like so many ceilidh dances there are variations. Here we have two videos with slightly different starts: either starting by circling left and right, or by advancing into and out of the circle twice. We danced in and out of the circle in class, which is the original version. This dance was written as an English barn dance by Eileen Keys in 1980.

Holmfirth, village in West Yorkshire, photo taken by Richard Harvey

All versions then have one couple go around the circle making an arch over the heads of all the dancers in the set. We added a little flourish in class by going over the first couple, under the arch of the second couple, then over the heads of the third couple. Each couple in the dances has a number allocated to them. 1 = head couple with back to the band, 2 = next couple moving around anti-clockwise, 3 = couple facing the band, 4 = final couple. The first time through the dance couple 1 arch over the other couples, second time couple 2, then couple 3, then couple 4. If the band keep playing listen to the caller – they may mess around with which couple or couples will dance around the circle after everyone has had a turn.

The next step of the Holmfirth Square is the lovely Grand Chain move that I like. It feels like an achievement when you get it right because when it goes wrong it gets into quite a muddle! Key tricks for a Grand Chain: face your partner – if you are now facing anti-clockwise around the circle you will keep going anti-clockwise around the circle, don’t change direction. Likewise for if you are facing clockwise. Next, take right hands with your partner, shake if you like, then (gently) pull them passed you so that you meet the next person travelling around the circle. Repeat with this next person, taking left hands with this person and pulling them passed you, right hands with the next person, left hands with the next etc etc until you return to your partner.

Finish the dance with spinning your partner, then start the dance again.

Starting with in and out of circle (4 steps in, 4 steps out), repeated.
Starting with circle left for 8, circle right for 8.

Virginia Reel

Virigina Reel is a common ceilidh dance in Scotland, and the version taught in class was the one most common in Scotland. There is a little more about it here in our introductory dances page, along with the following video taken at a wedding with The Rosevilles ceilidh band:

Reels of Three

The ‘reel of three’ is a figure common in ceilidh and folk dancing, and is often a figure used in the dance Dashing White Sergeant, which we looked at previously with simpler spinning moves in the class notes for last time.

The reel of three, sometimes called a figure of eight move, involves three dancers in a line making an eight pattern on the floor. It looks like this:

Reel of Three
An interesting exploration of timing and friendly vs hostile moves in a reel of 3! Don’t worry about the Strathspey tempo, we hardly ever dance that slow in ceilidh, but it good for showing the shape of the figure.

Thanks Jackie and Liz for helping explain this move in class.

St. Bernard’s Waltz

Saying that we rarely dance slowly in ceilidh, one rare time that we do is when we dance a waltz. It is good for when everyone is tired after jigs and reels, but sometimes catches dancers out if they expect to be moving a bit faster. St. Bernard’s Waltz, a sequence or old-time dance, is a dance for couples. Many ceilidh bands choose the beautiful tune of Margaret’s Waltz for this dance.

Aly Bain and Peerie Willie Johnston playing Margarets Waltz

The dance goes like this:

Dancing in Dufftown

A waltz at a ceilidh can scare people off a bit, if they don’t have any ballroom dancing experience, but the elegance and simplicity of this dance makes it a lovely rest between higher energy dances. Waltz in a ceilidh context is much simpler than ballroom so if you can’t actually waltz, don’t worry, most of any ceilidh waltz isn’t what ballroom dancers would consider to be waltzing, only the last 4 bars have a 1,2,3 waltz pattern and you can just turn in a circle with four step (beat 1)-hop (beat 2)-pause (beat 3) steps if you are not sure. However, if you’d like to waltz and fit that into the end of the St. Bernard’s Waltz (4 x 1, 2, 3 counts) then here, below, is a good slow-motion video. In this case they call it ‘rotary waltz’ and this is a good way to think of it because you turn as you step:

Looking forward to dancing with you again soon, next class is on Tuesday 21st November!

barn dance, Carharrack, ceilidh, classes, community, dance instructions

Ceilidh class notes (24/10/2023)

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This week we danced some ceilidh classics, getting ready for a flurry of ceilidhs in the run-up to Christmas, and because lovely couple H and S are looking forward to a ceilidh at their forthcoming wedding 🙂

So, a couple of classic English ceilidh dances, and a couple of classic Scottish ones. Plus, one extra for our almost-but-not-quite-Hallowe’en class:

Lucky Seven

Lucky Seven is a classic ceilidh dance that is an excellent mixer – a progressive dance where you dance with different partners each time through the dance. The origins of the dance seem a little unclear, with some sources describing it as Welsh, others as American-Danish, others Scottish (though I never encountered it living in Scotland) and others as English-style. It is so simple that it isn’t impossible that it has evolved from a variety of origins. As with so many ceilidh dances there are many variations of this dance (circling for different numbers of steps, other figures, turning partners, do si dos, etc etc), but they all have this grand chain and counting to seven.

The key thing here is to be able to count to seven (or however many the caller asks you to count to).

Slightly chaotic version!

Lucky Seven has a fragment of a ‘grand chain’ figure, a move that I really love because when it works well it really flows very nicely. In a grand chain you face your partner – shake or take their right hand and ‘pull’ them passed you, then give your left hand to the next person, pull them passed you, then right for the next person etc etc. Count your partner as person 1, then keep going until you reach person number 7 The key to making it work is knowing which direction to head around the circle when you start the grand chain – you start facing your partner, so if you are on the left of your pair then you will head anti-clockwise around the circle, right of your pair, then you head off clockwise. Person number 7 you spin instead of passing – so after spinning making you sure you end up on the left or right of your new partner, just as you were arranged before, back into the circle to start the dance again.

When it doesn’t quite work there is chaos! Usually this is because of either, instead of passing your partner or people in the circle you’ve done a complete turn and headed back the other direction, or you’ve ended up on the wrong side of your new partner after you had a spin, or perhaps after the quick spin you’ve forgotten whether the person on your right or left is your new partner and you turn to face the wrong person at the start of the grand chain. Easily done – the spin is a bit disorientating. Don’t worry about chaos – if you find yourself partner-less just head to the centre of the circle and you’ll find anyone else who is lost. If you are lost there must be at least one other person who is also lost.

Often, once you’ve got the dance a caller might change the number of people you pass on your grand chain, so you need to keep one ear open to the instructions from the caller.

Dashing White Sergeant

Extremely popular at ceilidhs in Scotland, the Dashing White Sergeant is actually inspired by Swedish circle dances. In this dance you stay with the same set of three people and progress around the room dancing with other threes, so you meet many of the people in the room.

Ceilidh style

Don’t be put off if other sets of 3 in a ceilidh do something a bit different than your set of 3. There are quite a few variations and flourishes. Variations in the dance are usually in the section danced in threes (the reeling section).

Scottish Country Dance style is more elegant, a two-handed turn and a reel of three or figure of eight move (where the dancers trace a shape on the floor). Sometimes you’ll see this figure of eight at ceilidhs also, but rarely the double handed turn.

Scottish Country Dance style

Reelers do their fancy turns and add claps in between setting and turning:

Reeling style

Witches’ Reel

In light of this being our class just before Hallowe’en it seemed important to include this one. A very easy longways set dance with a ‘thread the needle’ figure – see the video below for an illustration.

Gay Gordons

A couple / sequence dance classic at ceilidhs is the Gay Gordons. It is considered a traditional dance across multiple countries. This video below outlining the steps and the specific ‘Gay Gordons’ hold is very clear:

And here it is in action:

Oxo Reel

The OXO reel is an English ceilidh dance which is one I’ve picked up in recent years, and I really like the way it starts (so I have ‘borrowed’ that move for my dance Jonny’s birthday reel). OXO is the figure to remember here, and keep an eye out for where you are in the set to know what to do each time around: in a set of 6 couples he top and bottom 2 couples circle left for 8 then right for 8 and the middle couple make right- then left-hand stars. Where numbers of dancers can’t make a set of 6 couples callers may vary the instructions for the OXO bit. This dance is on the repertoire of many English ceilidhs so a very good one to know.

Glossary

Grand chain: In a grand chain, usually in a circle, half the dancers travel clockwise around the set and the others anti-clockwise, alternately taking right then left hands with the person in front of them and passing them on to the next person in the circle. Start facing your partner and take their right hand to start, then keep moving around the circle in the same direction. Here, below, is a very formal demonstration of a grand chain, from Scottish Country Dancing. It is a good illustration of the movement dancers make around the circle.

Grand chain demonstrated for Scottish Country Dancing

Progressive: A progressive dance is where you change partners at the end of each repeat of the dance.

Thread the needle: In a longways set, all join hands on the sides of the set and across the bottom of the set, then the person at the band end of one of the sides followed by the others dances through an arch made by 1st and 2nd people in the other line. Usually this is repeated – one line leads first (traditionally women) then the second line repeats.

This dance video starts with the ‘thread the needle’ move, in a dance of the same name:

Thread the needle
Carharrack, classes

Autumn ceilidh classes and ceilidh evenings

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Ceilidh dancing is a fabulous way to keep fit, have fun and meet people. Come and join us at the Carharrack Social Club for ceilidh classes and ceilidh evenings this autumn – we’ve got dates now for the rest of 2023!

Ceilidh dancing is a modern folk dance tradition popular in Scotland, and more recently across England. Similar dances can be found in Cornwall at nos lowen events. Our classes are suitable for those entirely new to dancing and ceilidh, as well as the experienced ceilidh dancer. You will learn classic ceilidh dances from Scotland and England and their associated steps and sequences, as well as more unusual dances from the ceilidh repertoire, and other ceilidh-like folk dances from traditions across the UK, Europe and North America. We’ll use recorded music in class, which allows us to explore an eclectic range of styles and bands.

You can drop in (pay by cash or card) or pre-book classes to secure your place, and if you block book for the term then you’ll get one class for free.

To complement the classes we’ve got two ceilidhs planned with live music from The Rosevilles Ceilidh Band – book your ceilidh tickets in advance to save money compared to on the door! The Rosevilles play a fun mixture of traditional celtic folk music, popular songs and gyspy-style swing.

We can’t wait to be dancing with you again!

Don’t miss out on the fun! Reserve your spot today!

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Photo credits: Top: Anete Lusina on Pexels.com; Bottom: Kate Smith, Birthday party ceilidh with The Rosevilles, July 2023

Carharrack, ceilidh, dance night

Ceilidh with The Rosevilles, 15th July

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Come along and dance to The Rosevilles Ceilidh Band on 15th July at the Carharrack Social Club. If you tried a taster class come along and have a ball to live music. If you didn’t try a class – no problem, you can pick up the dances on the night with Kate Smith calling. We look forward to a fantastic evening with you of lively, happy music and endorphin-generating dancing!

Get your tickets in advance here (£5 for adults, free entry for accompanied under 16s):

Register on Eventbrite
Carharrack, classes, free, taster

Whoop – ceilidh taster class 7th July

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Come dance with us – try ceilidh dancing for free on 7th July 19:00 – 20:30 at the Carharrack Social Club. I’m super-excited about all the interest in ceilidh classes from my tentative questioning last month.

Everyone welcome. Remember comfy clothes, flat-ish shoes and a water bottle.

More info and a registration link here
ceilidh, classes, community

Hello World!

ceilidhcornwall

Welcome to the new Ceilidh Cornwall website! Join our ceilidh-loving community.

Try a class, or find out more about what ceilidh is and check what’s on in Cornwall.

I’m a Scot living in Cornwall, with a love of dance. Even on the darkest, wettest winter day a good dose of ceilidh dancing can cheer the darkest mood, and an hour of ceilidh is, for me and many others, way more fun than an hour in the gym, but just as good for keeping fit.

Looking forward to meeting other ceilidh-lovers and inviting others to try it out. Smiling (virtually) guaranteed!

Do please explore this new website – it’ll expand shortly to include more information on ceilidh and ceilidh-like dancing, about this project and what we offer.

Please tell your friends about Ceilidh Cornwall!