A worldwide community of Scottish country dancers
A worldwide community of Scottish country dancers
It's official: According to this site, I write like David Foster Wallace! The blurb says that the site will do statistics on your text and match it to the profiles of famous authors. I fed the thing three separate blog postings and Strathspey messages, so at least it seems to be somewhat consistent with itself. Which is awesome considering that I don't seem to recall ever having read something by Wallace! And boy am I ever relieved the site didn't come up with »Dan Brown«!
(Anyway, maybe the site will always return one out of »Geoffrey Chaucer«, »David Foster Wallace«, or »Rosamunde Pilcher«. Can anyone try and see whether they get a different answer?)
My SCDData co-administrators will be pleased to find out (I hope) that it is now possible to go directly from a page showing a database record to the corresponding administrative page. This means that if you spot, say, a typo in a dance title it is very easy to pop over to the admin interface and fix it right there. For this to work you need to be logged in, and you need to be an accredited SCD database administrator.
We could still use some more volunteers to help with maintaining the SCD database. If you're interested, do get in touch!
The newest addition to the RSCDS web page is a three-page paper entitled Unit 0. In its own words, it claims that
This is best described as a course for those who are already leading/teaching, or about to take on a group, but who do not wish to sit the RSCDS teaching exams. Attendance on the course will result in a »Record of Completion of a course in basic SCD Teaching skills«.
First off, I think that this is a great idea. The Society needs to reach out to people who enjoy SCD so much that they are willing to spend their time passing that enjoyment on to others, and it needs to make clear that it does not take four weeks in St Andrews, a considerable investment of money and more time, and a succession of fear-inspiring »exams« to be recognised as a person who is qualified to teach SCD. (For the record, there are wonderful teachers who have never attempted an RSCDS exam, and there are holders of the RSCDS teaching certificate who don't exactly come across as inspired teachers.)
The interesting questions that this paper leaves open include:
Who is going to be teaching this »Unit 0« course?
On what basis will the »record of completion« be awarded?
Will this »record of completion« be made a prerequisite for the standard Unit 1-5 exam process?
Hopefully the Society will clear these up soon.
As many of you know, the FSCDC (where I teach) has been running a programme for budding teachers for a while now. If I compare the things we have been doing to the RSCDS's »Unit 0« list I think the people in our teacher programme are just about ready to pick up their »records of completion«. I'm happy to say that two of them have passed their Units 1 and will be going for Units 2/3 in St Andrews this summer, so I'm wishing them all the best already!
I just replaced the Strathspey Anniversary Collection draft with a new version that fixes a few small bugs in two dance descriptions, includes revised music from Wouter Joubert and Sheena Sturrock and adds the »Traditional Reel« (from Fire in the Rye) which is apparently the accepted music for »Tempest in a Teacup« by Terry Glasspool.
This project is shaping up nicely! One might even wonder where all the delays came from ... Thanks everybody.
I've published a draft version of the long-awaited Strathspey Anniversary Collection, which was due out 7 years ago or so. This incomplete document is available here under the caveat that it will probably be changed and revised many times before it becomes official. Feel free to download it and to check it over, but only if you agree to inform me of any mistakes and inconsistencies you find!
I just fixed a bunch of bugs (and buglets) to do with the handling of dances and dance selection lists in the web-based database front-end. Most of this work was in connection with the Frankfurt Spring Ball programme for next year, which Dagmar and I finalised a couple of weeks ago, and which I wanted to put on-line.
Here are the issues that I have fixed:
For logged-in users, on »dance« pages, the search box in the left-hand column would jump to the »add new crib« page. This was because the form containing the »add new crib« button wasn't closed properly in the HTML, so the search box logically belonged to that form. Confusion!
The plain-text dance list available from the selection screen (under »Export«) contained HTML escapes for ampersands. This was fixed to produce actual ampersands. The problem was that the template mechanism thought it was generating HTML, in which ampersands have a special meaning. (The same bug would also have produced HTML escapes for less-than and greater-than signs, but these do not tend to occur in dance titles and metadata.)
Also in plain-text dance lists, the column width for the dance names is now deduced from the maximum dance name length, to avoid large swathes of white space between the dance name and dance type/bars which might result in overlong lines.
The crib generator for HTML did not take into account the changes applied to support ACE-format cribs, so ACE-format cribs were added to the HTML in ACE format. This was changed to run ACE-format cribs through the Markdown processor before output. The same change was applied to the »crib:« magic link processor code.
User-supplied cribs are credited to the user in question in HTML crib sheets and »crib:« magic link expansions.
The generation of »immediate-display« HTML crib sheets was changed to actually work; this must have been broken for a very long time, which tells us that apparently nobody ever used the feature, or missed it enough to complain. You just wait and see until we upload all of Charles Upton's MiniCribs, at which point this will be much nicer than Microsoft Word™.
Exhortation: Do let me know if you find bugs or if, in general, things do not appear to work like you think they should work. Or just drop me a line if you actually use this stuff; I make it available because I use it myself, but it would be great to hear from other folks who find this useful (or even from people who don't use it, in which case I'd be interested in finding out why).
Here's another small bunch of remarks concerning Finlay Forbes' column in Dance On! issue 43. He leads off with
In a previous issue of Dance On!, »The Dancie« mentioned that Miss Milligan considered Hugh Foss’s views on Scottish Country Dancing to be »dangerous«. The obvious questions arising from her assertion are: »dangerous to what?« and »dangerous to whom?« For anything to be dangerous something or someone must be in line for serious damage and it is difficult to see who or what was placed in significant peril by the thoughts of the late Mr Foss.
No, it isn't. We just need to consider that, at the time, Miss Milligan had spent decades of her life establishing the RSCDS as the pursuit's »governing body« (coincidentally with herself as the most influential figure as far as the actual dancing was concerned). The RSCDS was the source of dances, the trainer of teachers, etc., etc. The general spirit was »We know how this goes, listen to us and do what we tell you!« Hugh Foss, on the other hand, was a big supporter of the idea of »rolling back the carpet«, of trying out new ideas at the grassroots level, of thinking things through rather than accepting them uncritically as they are handed down from above.
Students of recent political history will be keenly aware that once somebody has established themselves as an authority the last thing they want is for people at the bottom to think for themselves, to come up with their own ideas, and to challenge the existing »power structure«. Hugh Foss was inventing new dances (and encouraging others to do the same) long before the Society got around to publishing The Reel of the 51st Division — at a time when many people inside the community were wondering whether making up new dances should even be allowed. On top of many writings dealing with the practical aspects of fitting dances to music, teaching dancing, etc., Hugh Foss also came up with whole new »paradigms« such as the idea of five-couple dances with 1st and 3rd couples starting simultaneously (to say nothing of achievements like »fugues« or The Celtic Brooch) — but we may draw our own conclusions from the fact that it took the Society until 2007 (36 years after Hugh Foss's death) to actually publish any of his dances, let alone acknowledge most of his other work.
So Hugh Foss's ideas were »dangerous« because uncontrolled innovation is always dangerous in an environment where any sort of new idea is supposed to be officially sanctioned first. We shouldn't forget that the SCDS's mission, when it was new, was essentially to snatch SCD from the jaws of decadence and oblivion; the founders' feeling in 1923 was that what was left of Scottish country dancing was greatly inferior to what SCD used to be (in their opinion, anyway), and that to be viable in the future SCD needed to be thoroughly redone. This of course required coming up with a new set of »rules of the game« and of promoting them with enough fervour for them to take over — something that Jean Milligan as an instructor of PE teachers was very well placed to do. We can also surmise, that in her professional capacity, she was used to people doing what she said! It is easy to see how the philosophy of the early SCDS may have coloured that of the later RSCDS, and how a »loose cannon« like Hugh Foss would have been viewed as a »danger« to the position of authority that the SCDS, in its time, had fought hard for — and that the RSCDS, at the time, was happy to maintain. So chances are that Miss Milligan, in fact, didn't consider Hugh Foss's ideas dangerous to SCD (as Finlay seems to think) but to the Society — although in Miss Milligan's mind that may really have amounted to the same thing.
The really interesting question is now — nearly 4 decades after Hugh Foss's death — whether the situation is still the same, or whether we (the SCD community, including the RSCDS) have learned anything in the intervening years. I'd say we have, although not as much as we still need to learn — but that's a topic for another day.
Let me conclude this posting by suggesting that we need more Hugh Fosses. The RSCDS must take its authority not from »the grace of God« or the sense that they made SCD what it is today so it is their ball game and they get to make the rules, but from a general consensus in the SCD community that the Society is the right people in the right places who are doing worthwhile work on behalf of the community. If that is the case, the Society has nothing to fear from people who push the envelope like Hugh Foss did. In fact, »dangerous ideas« like Hugh Foss's are to be invited and encouraged, because we can learn a lot from them (including which ones — like five-couple dances — are worth keeping and which ones — like dances with three-bar or ten-bar phrases — aren't really cut out to become mainstream material). Engaging »dangerous ideas« will help us strengthen the foundations of our dancing, and they can, in the end, only make us — the SCD community — stronger.
Today was our extra afternoon on fugues and Celtic Brooch — about 20 people were there (not all from Frankfurt) and I expect Eva will write an entry to our club's event log giving more detail about the afternoon from her perspective.
Instead, I'll muse a bit about what I did for the fugues, why and how (I'll save the The Celtic Brooch for some other time, because that wasn't as much of a challenge as far as the teaching was concerned).
In Dance On!, issue 43, Finlay Forbes once more treats us to his monthly installment of »Scottish country dancing will die out because ...«. This time around, the reasons why are:
Established dancers will book up a night's programme in advance so they will not have to dance with people they don't know, and
As an aggravated version of this, people will arrange to dance in the same set of eight people all night in order to be able to show off.
The practice of »booking ahead« whole events is, of course, familiar to Strathspey subscribers; it has come up time and again as a topic of discussion, and in all cases so far the consensus has been that (a) it is very much a local phenomenon — in some areas people do it a lot and in others not at all —, and that (b) the practice of booking a whole night's programme ahead of the event is frowned upon by many dancers (who presumably don't indulge in it themselves).
So the demise of SCD at the hands of the pre-bookers does not actually seem imminent, in spite of what Finlay claims. It is also worth noting that — as Finlay the avowed traditionalist should surely be aware of — pre-booking a whole evening of dancing is by no means a new-fangled phenomenon. In fact, back in the old days when the RSCDS didn't hold sway and the pas de basque still was what it was meant to be, it was quite common for printed dance programmes to feature empty spaces where one would pencil in the name of the person one had booked for the dance. Officially condoned whole-night pre-booking! Yet somehow SCD managed to survive even these dark ages. I think we may be mildly optimistic that it will go on — globally speaking — even though pockets of pre-bookers remain.
Having thus easily disposed of half of Finlay's argument, we can now tackle the other half: the »demonstration set syndrome«. Again we should point out that this is at best a local problem — we certainly don't see a lot of it here in Germany, where there are lots of young and very good dancers around who should be as interested in showing off their prowess on the dance floor as anybody. However, if we take Finlay's complaint to an extreme, we arrive at a point where a ball is exclusively attended by people who arrive together, spend the evening in a very close-knit group on and off the dance floor (showing off their fancy moves in the process), and then leave again. It would be churlish to point out that this is exactly what happens at contemporary-style ballroom dancing functions, yet ballroom dancing shows no obvious signs of dying out. (My hometown of Friedberg with its 15000 inhabitants or so, for example, supports two large dance schools with fairly lavish premises each; they certainly draw a larger crowd than SCD seems to do in Frankfurt at 600000 people.) (On the other hand, they need to make a living off it and we don't.) We may also be excused for wondering whether these groups of eight people sit out all the three-couple and five-couple dances that people put on programmes these days, or whether they clench their teeth and dance with folks from outside their »set« rather than not dance at all? But the main counter-argument is that this form of behaviour is, in fact, self-limiting. First of all, nobody is forced to watch such a »demonstration set«. At least hereabouts dancers at a function are free to find their own partners and form varying sets elsewhere on the floor. Secondly, what do these people do when two or three out of their number can't make it to an event? Stay away altogether? Problem solved. Bring in other people to fill up their »demonstration set«? Then what do they do the next time, when the original members are back? Throw the »extras« out again? I think the resulting tension of who gets to dance with whom in which »demonstration set« is nothing that people will actively enjoy in the long term.
In my letter to the editor in the same issue of Dance On! I have argued that the SCD community needs to actively welcome new dancers while still providing an outlet for experienced dancers to do »advanced« stuff. On Sunday I shall be teaching a 4-hour afternoon class on fugues and »The Celtic Brooch«, which is explicitly targetted at »advanced dancers«. We have, in fact, suggested to some people who wanted to come that they might not be quite up to these dances (shock horror!). Does that make us »elitist« — »vain creatures« who delight in »showing off their skills to the cloddish riff raff«? I don't think so. Last Tuesday a week ago we had an »open night« of ceilidh and easy country dances where a whole load of people turned up for a casual evening of fun — it was not really a recruiting event on our part, only our annual contribution to the Frankfurt »intercultural festival« that takes place in November each year. As you can see, we emphatically try to serve both ends of the spectrum. The more advanced dancers in the Frankfurt club are usually very good with beginners, so as far as I'm concerned they can have one afternoon a year to themselves. I'm quite sure that this will not cause the Frankfurt club to keel over, nor will it matter in the Grand Scheme of Things. (In point of fact some of the newer dancers have expressed an interest in coming along just to watch — so Finlay may feel relieved that we're going to vindicate his theory by showing off to the cloddish riff raff after all.)
I agree with Finlay that both whole-evening booking and the »demonstration set syndrome« are vices that go against what I would consider the spirit of SCD, and teachers and group leaders should try to use whatever influence they have with dancers to work against them. However, we will not be able to stamp them out entirely, nor do we have to. I think it is important to give people leeway to find what they enjoy, and at the same time to set a good example of the way we would want others to behave (most of them, anyway). Even in SCD, people will follow »role models«, and rather than whinge (and every month, at that!) about how the community is going to the dogs it behooves us to take on an active role and shape it the way we want it to be. It worked for Miss Milligan and Mrs Stewart in the 1920s — why shouldn't it work in the 21st century?
