past events: 2003-04 (spring)
Dunedin Assembly | St Andrews Highland Ball | IVFDF | Newcastle Spring Dance | Newcastle Festival Competition | Glasgow University Annual Ball | Student Festival ceilidh | New Scotland Annual Dance
Dunedin Assembly 2004
by Linda
Photos from the dance and dinner
This year Dunedin Assembly changed venue to allow more people attend, and was held in St George's School for Girls, Edinburgh on Saturday 27th March 2004. The hall at St George's is much bigger than the previous year's venue so we weren't falling over each other during the dances. The evening started with a sherry reception, as a non sherry connoisseur I had not realised that many types of sherry existed!
The dance started as it meant to go on with the music provided by Iain McPhail and his band being exceptional - although we did look a bit concerned when the second accordionist went off to find a pair of pliers during one of the dances. The food this year was provided by the caterers at St George’s and they provided an amazing spread for us, the hardest part was deciding what to take from the buffet!
After dinner the dancing restarted and with the increased tempo of the
music meant many of us were left thinking 'Why did I eat so much?'. By
the time we reached the end of Peter Hastings' excellent programme and
had survived the final dance (during which the band moved into overdrive)
most people were feeling just a little tired and ready to collapse at
the after dance party held by Katy and Andrew.
St Andrews Celtic Society Highland Ball
by Linda
Photos from the dance and dinner
The St Andrews Highland ball is one of the major events each year. This year it was held later than in previous years, on Saturday 13th March, but in the Younger Hall as usual, and with Sandy Nixon providing the exceptional music. We managed to arrive with plenty of time to get changed and start swatting up on the dances, for some of us the programme was full of weird and wonderful dances which were likely to lead to much laughter on the dance floor - and they did!
Dinner provided a rest from the dancing (for feet and brains) and was
a very nice buffet which ended in the traditional fashion with apple pie
(or chocolate gateaux or pecan pie if you prefered!). Once the meal was
finished it was back to the dancing which proved to be rather bouncy in
places due to the sprung floor (so did anyone else feel seasick whilst
dancing?) and I must remember that "Geese in the Bog" is not a dance to
be done when still feeling very full if the floor bounces!!! All in all
a good night was had by all - especially those of us testing out our new
ball dresses!
IVFDF 2004
by Davide
Lights on IVFDF 2004! The journey of over 12 hours to Exeter did not scare the 26 brave dancers from all over Scotland ready to face the long trip south. We left early: a few tried to sleep taking advantage of free seats, but it was only a brief try as very soon it was singing time! The length of the jouney , even with some breaks, allowed plenty of time to explore all the known Scottish repertoire with a many Irish & German & Italian intermissions. Not satisfied with that, we decided to entertain everybody with an improvised dance in the hall of every single service station. 'Heel for heel and toe for toe…'
Finally Exeter: an hour to relax and find a place to sleep, and then
ready for the Ceilidh! A huge room filled with with people; and English,
Scottish, French and goodness knows what else dances. Great bands and
great fun! The night slowly rolls on with a free session and new dances:
Bourrées, Mazurkas…
Second day: workshops and workshops again: great success for Molly and
Morris and…also a bit of Swing!
There was also time for performing: the 'SUSCDF' contingent (including
New Scotland) featured the latest choreographed-on-the-spot dem (what
are we doign next?...And now?...). Then various other fun performances
took place including great hard-shoe dancing from our Exeter hosts and
a very English Galoshin with St.George, dragons, Turks, drunk maids and
everything else.
Roll-on Sunday! Many people took it as a much lazier day after the busy
Saturady. Most people were half-asleep at the workshops, then we relaxed
with an open-air lunch, bathing in a bright shining southern sun, until
it was time for the Survivors Ceilidh. And once our attendance at the
Survivors Ceilidh proved we had officially 'survived' IVFDF 2004, we piled
back on the bus, put a video of 'Shrek' on and setteld down for the journey
home to Scotland!
Newcastle Spring Dance 2004
by Johann and Linda
Photos (mostly of 'Bridgewater Geordie'!)
There was one car load of brave souls who headed down to Newcastle for the University dance on 21st February 2004 - well a lot of people had been down the previous weekend for the festival but that’s another story! This years dance was put on by the graduates after the club folded in December and the programme was (as usual) excellent – finding a dance I wanted to sit out to get a rest was the biggest problem! We certainly danced our feet off and, by all accounts, everyone else did too. The dance was a little quieter than usual, though none the less fast paced, action packed and tiring, guess we left all the noisy people in Edinburgh...
Though we were not provided with food the cakes and biscuits kindly donated
by attendees was more than we could eat, there was enough for the dance,
the after dance party, the drive home and there was still cake left –
we were eating cake for the next week or so, not that we were complaining!
Newcastle Festival Compeition 2004
by Jan and Rachel
Photos from
the competition and evening dance
Photos from
the Sunday walk
On Valentine's Day, Saturday 14th February, various New Scotland demmers went down to England to take part in the Newcastle Festival dance competition. We put teams in all three classes open to us:
- Open Ladies
- Open Mixed
- Display (joint entry with Dunedin Dancers as "New Dunedin")
The competiton this year was so popular -with more than 10 teams in both the ladies and the mixed sections - that it had to start an hour earlier than ususal and finish later! Although we didn't win in the very strong competition of teams from the whole UK (unlike last year, when "New Dunedin Dancers" won the display section) all the teams produced excellent performances, and this was also reflected in the positive comments of the adjudicator. In particular, the Ladies team shared the third place and Mixed team stayed just a few points from it. All the performances were also liked by other dancers (and, most important, by Margo :)) [N.B. Dunedin is spreading a rumour that our chances of winning the display were scotched when the tannoy blared out that our pizzas had arrived at reception just as the adjudicatation was being made!]
Many thanks to all the dancers who took part (and all people standing in at the practices), the musicians - Ian and David on the day and James at practices beforehand, Margo for teaching the New Scotand teams, Stewart for putting together the display dance, Seonaid for organizing lots of things, and Stephen for ordering the pizza......
There were also other New Scotland members at the competitoin - some who had come down to watch and support us and others (with multiple allegences!) who were dancing in other teams - Dunedin (of course!), Airie Hall dancers (who shared third place with us in the Ladies compeition), Newcastle, and Alba (who won the Mixed competition). So well done to all those NS members as too!
After the pizza came the evening dance which was thoroughly enjoyed by all. Then we repeated Novemnebrs game of 'how many people can you sleep in Chris's flat' before vaiously heading home on Sunday or stopping off for another very pleasant walk in the Cheviots (and we didn't do any scenic detours this time either!)
Glasgow Univeristy Annual Ball 2004
by Jan and Martina
The weather on the Saturday evening strongly suggested that staying at home was by far the best option. However, a minibus-load of NS folks set off for Glasgow Annual Ball. The venue was Bearsden Burgh Hall, as has become usual in the last couple of years. Surprisingly we managed to be actually half an hour early this year, so the perfect-as-usual Sandy Nixon and his Band did not have to wait for us like happened the last year.
The dance programme was excellent, including some less familiar (well,
not familiar at all!) dances. Unfortunately, some of the dances managed
to kill few sets in the course of the evening (to be fair, there were
more beginners at the dance than is usual). Anyway, if you were not dancing,
you could enjoy the bubbly stuff in complimentary champaign mini-bottles
instead (see photos). The bottles also played an important role during
the interval. Together with folds of paper they were used to explain John
Drewry's "The Dancing Master"
- the bottles being the men, of course. I would suggest the organisers
for next year to have something handy to stand in for ladies, because
the paper ones has a tendency to take off when people laughed! Sadly,
the second half flew by as quickly as the first one and we were soon heading
for Edinburgh braving a heavy snowfall.
New Scotland's Student Festival Ceilidh
by Catherine
As part of Societies' week, New Scotland held a very successful ceilidh in Teviot Debating Hall. The hall was absolutely packed for a brilliant night! There were over 200 people through the door and at one point we counted over 120 people dancing at once (see photos).
Andy Kain's band provided fantastic music. Everyone had a great night
doing all our favourite ceilidh dances and also having a go at an English
dance. Needless to say we were all exhausted by the end of a particularly
long Strip the Willow! The night ended in the traditional manner with
a very vigorous rendition of 'Auld
Lang Syne'.
New Scotland Annual Dance 2004
by Nancy
The New Scotland Annual Dance 2004 was held on Saturday 31st January at James Gillespie's High School, Marchmont - the same venue as SUSCDF in December. This time, however, the hall had a springtime atmosphere, having been decorated with 300 daffodils, as well as ivy and branches of fir - a pleasant contrast to the cold rain outside!
Over 100 people came to the dance including from other many societies - proved by the numerous announcements for future dance events in places as far away as Cambridge to as close as Glasgow.Yoshi's dance programme was fantastic, with dances to suit everyone's tastes; and there was excellent, lively music provided by Gary Donaldson and his band- especially in the second half when Plantation Reel received thunderous applause! The interval was highlighted by absolutely loads of delicious food - particularly puddings!
Dancing continued until late, ending with the traditional rendition of 'Auld Lang Syne' and a fast polka. And for those who did not then stagger home exhausted to collapsed into bed, the night continued with the after-dance party hosted by Rachel and Neil (with plenty of leftover food to satisfy 2am - or 4am! - hunger pangs).