Dancing At A Ceilidh (Cultural Proof #1)

"Attend a traditional dance event and discover the meaning of the dance, music, or narrative being told by the dance."

          At the beginning of the semester, I had the opportunity to attend a ceilidh dance on September 8th, at about 8:00pm. What is little known about Scotland is that the people here are always down for a rowdy get-together where they can dance to traditional music. The modernization of the country had left some aspects untouched, such as the ceilidh, which is a dance mainly used for large groups, such as weddings, corporate events, and welcoming in the new freshman at the University.
         What piqued my interest in the dance was that my flatmates had seen a flyer advertising the event and had begun to talk about all the ceilidhs that they had gone to when they were younger. They made it seem really fun and a relaxed traditional event to use to submerse myself in the culture. When I got to the dance, I wasn't really sure what was going to happen or how people jumped in the dances. I knew that the ceilidh was similar to what might happen at nightclubs where one song would play, people would dance, and then the next song seamlessly transitioned in. Would this be similar to ceilidhs? Does everyone just automatically know what dance is going to happen? While I was quite excited, I was also unsure of what was going to happen.
          As I quickly found out, ceilidhs are guided events. The live band has an "expert caller" that will announce the next song as well as what jig or dance is to be up next. To help all the beginners or people who have never been to ceilidhs before, the caller will also take between five and ten minutes to walk everyone through the dances once people have found their partners or groups. In Scottish ceilidhs, many dances don't have a narrative in the traditional sense. However, there are a few that reflect the landscape or certain aspects of culture. For example, one of the last dances of the night was the Waves of Tory (an Irish dance that is often incorporated into Scottish ceilidhs) and many of the moves were designed to replicate the ocean around Tory. While the dance itself told no tale, it mimicked the landscape from where it originated.
          Other dances such as the Flying Scotsman, Canadian Barn Dance, and Dashing White Sergeant were not meant so much to tell a story as they were to get everyone more excited and interactive. A dance such as the Canadian Barn Dance and (even more fun!) Aggressive Canadian Barn Dance involves pairs of a man and a women parading in a circle and then splitting up for the men to go and find another woman to dance with. These types of partner dances were used for men to court women as often the physical movement of the woman is led by the man where both hands are being held together to keep the partners close. In the Flying Scotsman, the man-woman pair go (as the name states) flying down the rows of dancers as fast as they can, again, with the man leading the woman in the dance. Using these dances, the band helped stir up the energy and get us more interactive with one another.
          At the end of the night, my group of friends and I were all thoroughly exhausted from dancing the night away. I learned a lot about dancing together in groups of three, six, eight, or even twenty four. Ceilidh dances are great ways to get involved with the traditional Scottish culture as well as the get in a great workout.