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).
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.
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.
Reelers do their fancy turns and add claps in between setting and turning:
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.
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:
Ceilidh Cornwall 