The reel thing!
If you can follow a knitting pattern and fancy an energetic hobby, why not take up Scottish Country Dancing?
They say that one should try everything once. Everything, that is, except incest. And folk dancing. But here in Cyprus it seems the latter has become all the rage and surprisingly it’s the Scottish dance tradition that seems to be proving a hit with locals.
I say surprising, because Scottish country dancing is quite difficult to master, requiring the endurance and strength of an athlete and a razor sharp brain coupled with the artistry of a dancer.
Women who can knit complex patterned jumpers will also blossom on the dance floor, as Scottish dancing is akin to following a Fair Isle knitting pattern with your feet and hands. No easy task, as I discovered when I joined a group of enthusiasts keen to demonstrate their skills and prove that this Sudoko for the lower limbs is not only fun, satisfying and lovely to watch, but is also an ideal way to deliver a full body work out.
The indomitable Alison Rennie is both teacher and ‘caller’ for the evenings. With teaching skills honed over years spent at the front line of secondary school education, is it not a challenge to teach this form of country dancing to non Scots? “Not at all, we encourage all nationalities to come and learn to dance. Here we have Norwegian, English, Welsh. We also warmly welcome all ages, from youngsters to pensioners”.
But the dances themselves look incredibly complex. “It’s more to do with learning the formations than the actual steps, you dance in ‘sets’ of six to eight people and it’s very much about it being a team effort, with each mirroring the other. All the dances, as with most folk dancing, tell a story and the music, of course, is particularly rousing, sometimes, gentle, other times lyrical.
“The other great thing about this form of dance is you can come here with or without a partner, ladies and men will come on their own and know they will be guaranteed a dance so that’s a huge bonus.”
Watching one chap getting himself into a bit of a pickle during the first dance, I wondered if Alison was prone to issuing a red card to repeat offenders, before sending them off the dance floor. “We are not doing display dancing, this is dancing for pleasure and the love of music. We do however have some who, even after years of trying, just don’t get it but that’s part of the fun and challenge of this form of dancing”.
The most complex and boisterous of the Scottish country dances is perhaps an Eightsome Reel, a dance that has put many men and women into plaster casts. “That’s a dance which although wonderful is a bit too much for some of our elder members, which really is a shame. Something we would dearly like to rectify is encouraging younger dancers to come along and join in”.
The group also hosts a Ceildhi (Scottish party) a handful of times each year, when the Scots in the group get kilted up, feet encased in their special Ghillie dancing shoes, allowing them to swing along to the evocative highland fiddle music showing off the poetry of the foot. Ladies dressed in long frocks will hopefully all move so smoothly through the formations that onlookers will imagine they are rolling on castors throughout the dance. At these events there’s also whisky to accompany the dance and music, three essential elements that form a holy trinity as far as the highlanders in the midst are concerned.
In Paphos on a Tuesday evening the lure of weekly Scottish Country Dancing classes has probably led to a spate of premature hip replacements, twisted ankles and torn Achilles tendons, but it’s obviously great fun and although no-one the night we attended admitted to any injury, all confirmed a good jig was something they looked forward to every week. “I use Scottish country dancing as a form of litmus test as to the state of my mental health,” one dancer confides, “because if I can memorise 10 to 15 dances out of the thousands that are available, I would say I was still as sharp as a tack. And I do believe it’s all down to learning, remembering and enjoying these dances”.
I took my leave as the group danced on, a strathspey was playing and all the dancers were on the balls of their feet, toes pointed out as they glided from place to place following a pattern on the floor. It’s really a rather beautiful form of dance and for anyone who feels they need a form of fun workout, loves the throb of a good jig and is concerned about the onset of dementia, the answer has to be Scottish Country dancing.
Scottish Country Dancing
Every Tuesday evening at Vasiliko Café (up from Evangelismos clinic), Paphos. 18:00-20:00. All welcome. Contact: Lindsay Smith, Tel: 99 838139, [email protected]. Members: €2, non-members, €3
