Jigs, reels and a real good time
Jerry Agin of Pittsburgh, center, dons his kilt during the Scottish country dance workshop on March 19. Lou Hanson of Charlottesville, Va., led the workshop, directing dancers on the steps.
A group practices a dance during the workshop portion of the Pittsburgh Scottish Country Dance Society’s 35th annual Highland Ball. The workshop ran in the afternoon with the ball following in the evening on March 19.
Elke Baker on fiddle, Ralph Gordon on bass and Liz Donaldson on piano perform with the band Terpsichore during the dance workshop. The trio performed Scottish country dance music pieces like “The White Cockade,” “Delvine Side” and “The White Heather Jig.”
Katie Roupe/Observer-Reporter Jerry Agin of Pittsburgh, center, dons his kilt during the Scottish country dance workshop on Saturday, March 19. Lou Hanson of Charlottesville, Va., led the workshop, directing dancers on the steps.
PITTSBURGH – Beth Lindsey has zigzagged across the country, pinballing from Philadelphia to Seattle to Washington, D.C., and finally landing in the Pittsburgh area in 2010 to teach physics at the Greater Allegheny campus of Penn State University.
Along the way, she’s had one surefire path to making friends – she’s slipped a pair of ghillies on her feet and made tracks to a Scottish country dancing class.
“I always like the music,” Lindsey said after a round of bowing and curtseying and five-couple square sets. “It’s really been my only form of exercise. I think it appeals to the mathematical side of my brain.” Lindsey was one of about 30 people who ascended to the top of Mount Washington recently for a meeting of the Pittsburgh Scottish Country Dance Society. Setting up in the banquet hall of Grace Episcopal Church, a selection of newcomers and seasoned veterans like Lindsey, who first discovered Scottish country dancing in 1997 when she was an undergraduate, went through their paces.
Instructor Arthur McNair, decked in kilts and long stockings, explained the dances and offered demonstrations, with the participants following the basic steps with varying degrees of grace and skill. They were accompanied by a recording thick with fiddles and accordions churning out reels, jigs and strathspeys.
“It’s the music that gets you going,” said Janet Walker, a native of England who has been a certified instructor of Scottish country dancing since 1994.
The society also has get-togethers on Saturday night at the church. In recent weeks, they were preparing for their annual Highland Ball, which unfolded at the George Washington Hotel in downtown Washington on March 18-20. The three-day celebration included workshops, a dinner and, of course, plenty of dancing. The society also will be represented at Pittsburgh’s Tartan Day Celebration at Bethel Park Presbyterian Church on April 9.
Bearing a resemblance to square dancing, Scottish country dancing dates to the 18th century and has its roots in dance styles that had been established in England and Ireland. The dances are usually carried out in organized formations of couples. It is sometimes confused with highland dance, which is a solo style of dance, and emerged as an alternative to more stately formal dances that were popular among the hoi polloi.
The Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, based in Edinburgh, Scotland, describes the fundamentals of Scottish country dancing this way: “Participants are grouped into sets, typically three, four or five couples arranged in two lines (men facing women) or in a square, and work together to dance a sequences of formations. This will leave them in a new order, and the dance is repeated enough times to bring them back to their starting positions, with everyone dancing each position in turn.”
The Pittsburgh Scottish Country Dance Society is not an outlier in the United States – there are also groups dedicated to Scottish country dancing in Harrisburg, State College, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Charlottesville, Va., Kansas City and scores of other cities, both large and small. According to the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society, the organization has 59 branches in this country, and it’s also represented in likely places like Australia and Canada, and then some unlikely ones like Japan, Jamaica, Norway and Ukraine. All told, there are 160 branches of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society and 320 affiliated groups.
Some people are attracted to Scottish country dancing because it gives them a tangible link to their own heritage; others, who might have nary a drop of Scottish blood in them, have become fans for a more prosaic reason – it’s a form of exercise that’s more enjoyable than, say, running on a treadmill.
“A number of people are drawn to Scottish country dancing for its many health benefits,” said Mike Greenwood, a spokesman for the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society. He explained by email that some local governments in the United Kingdom have inserted Scottish country dancing into programs designed to enhance the well-being of their constituents.
“We are extremely proud that so many people take up dance as a way to get healthy, move and, of course, have fun,” Greenwood said.
And though Scottish country dance has roots dating back three centuries, new dances are being fashioned and the form is being refreshed by younger participants, Greenwood added. The new dances are added to the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society’s official book, and old dances have been given fresh interpretations and new variations.
Membership in the Pittsburgh Scottish Country Dance Society has waxed and waned through the years, according to spokesman Bruce Golightly, with as many as 50 active members participating at some times, and as few as 20. An important point the group emphasizes when it appears at festivals is that Scottish heritage is not a prerequisite for taking part. Golightly is himself half-Irish, and their regular membership includes people whose roots are Irish, English and Polish.
Along with the satisfaction of working up a good sweat, many Scottish country dancers say they constantly strive to hone their skills. “Seeing the more advanced dances sometimes provides motivation for beginning dancers to work on increasing their skill levels,” Golightly said. “I decided early on that I wanted to develop my skills to the point where I could participate in shows as a dancer rather than a spectator or in a supporter capacity.”
Like Beth Lindsey, Bethany Ziss has lived in many places, including South Carolina and Philadelphia, and her participation in Scottish country dance groups has been a constant. Ziss, a pediatrician, finds dancing to be “a physical and mental workout, but it’s not too taxing.”
“You push yourself to do a little better each time,” she added.