Read Robert Vale’s report of this afternoon of Early Dances below

Following a suggestion by Edith Campbell in 2023, The RSCDS Wellington Region decided to run an afternoon celebrating the Centenary of the Publication of Book 1 and did so in April 2024, featuring dances from Books 1-5. Following the success of this afternoon, the Region organised a second Early Dances Day on Saturday 12 April, 2025.

The event was held in St John’s Anglican Church Hall, in Bassett Road, Johnsonville, the white church on top of the hill.

The sesssion was taught by Elaine Laidlaw, accompanied by musicians Lynne Scott on the fiddle and Thomas Nikora on piano with Sam Berkahn filling in on the piano at the last second, until Thomas could get away from an unexpected commitment.

It was advertised as being suitable for people who had been dancing for at least two years and “For dancers who…have a reasonable level of fitness”. Fitness was definitely needed, dancing began at 1:00pm and continued to 4.30pm, although there was a very welcome break for a substantial afternoon tea, very kindly prepared for us by Elaine and Kevin Lethbridge.

The Early Dances Day was “exactly what it says on the tin”, a day (well an afternoon) of dances from the early books (in this case Books 6-12) published by the RSCDS. These are dances we don’t do very often these days.

Book 6 was published in 1930 and Book 12 in 1938, but thanks to the detailed notes written by Region President Rod Downey, we were able to discover that the dances we danced were all from long before then, mostly from around 1750.

See more about the history of the dances, music and formations in Rod’s notes

The dances were not familiar and several had names that sounded strange to modern ears, such as Knit the Pocky and The Moudiewort. While not necessarily difficult, some had features to trap the unwary, like The Duchess of Atholl’s Slipper and Red House, with their idiosyncratic reels.

One of the noticeable features of these older dances is that dancers are expected to be prepared for some quite abrupt changes from one figure to another, unlike many modern dances in which the figures are carefully devised to flow. Thanks to Elaine’s careful tuition we managed them all without mishap.

When we went home at the end of the afternoon, it was with sore feet, aching muscles and a sense of achievement at having mastered some of the dances of nearly three centuries past.

Robert Vale
1 May 2025