Teaching our Chrildren to Dance keeps them healthy and anchored in their culture.

 

 

This delightful picture from the website of the CLUARAN website (the Scottish dance group in St Louis, on the Golfe de Morbihan in Southern Brittany) shows both the joy of dancing, and my passion for teaching children to dance. Dance brings children great fun, joyful laughter, a sense of achievement, good body posture and healthy exercise. What's not to like?  Dancing has been enhanced by the success of TV programs like Dancing with the Stars (USA) and Strictly Come Dancing (in UK) and films like Billy Elliot about a boy who wanted to dance .... and maybe by huge stage successes like Hamilton, The Lion King and West Side Story that include dancing as an integral part of their whole story. Even boys!

 

We have forgotten the cultural importance of dancing - which was traditionally linked to the masculine skills of fencing -  in European life. In Africa dancing is an integral part of daily life. This used to be true in Europe. Entertainment was poetry and music, song and dance. Now we consume entertainment on a box, while sinking unhealthily into our armchairs. In the New Year : teach children to dance! 

Here is an RSCDS picture of The Triumph danced around 1841. Our heritage!
 

 

 

we are dancing all over Brittany - most nights of the week there is Scottish dancing somewhere !

Last Sunday I danced on the coast of the Côtes d'Armor. This next Sunday I shall be dancing in Josselin, in the centre of Brittany, where the RSCDS Breton Branch will have its monthly dance : easy dances from 10am and more complex dances in the afternoon. Friday I danced in Lannion; Tuesdays I dance in Guingamp or in St Quay Perros; Mondays I sometimes dance in Rennes .... and we have a monthly Ceilidh (on the Last Sunday of every month) in Pordic, near St Brieuc. naturally, our whole approach seeks to place Scottish culture in Europe, even if the English prefer their Brexit.

Dancing is good for you.

Dancing is the most complete exercise for the body and the brain; and to these physical assets, the music brings psychological soothing while the dance groups provide social health and conviviality.  Scottish dance improves balance, while the teamwork involved in dancing the formations together contributes a different type of balance and adds very beneficial social interactions. 

Researchers have proved than DANCING IS GOOD FOR YOU !!!!!

We are back dancing .... modestly .... with children around the Maypole

 The Maypole dance is a Celtic Beltaine tradition. Covid blocked us on May 1st, so we raised the Maypole for France's National Day July 14th. Here is Claudine, beautifully dressed and surrounded by happy children holding ribbons. We used recorded Morris Music from Essex to provide a suitably plodding beat as we all marched our ribbons around the Maypole, or Maibaum, or Mât enrubanné. The bored adolescent on her smartphone illustrates the age differences. Old and Young had fun; but 300 years ago, she would have been holding a ribbon with the best of them, with us watching!

 We shall dance again !!!!  Nous allons danser! On Sunday June 13th in Josselin, in the centre of Brittany, the Scottish Dancers of the RSCDS Breton Branch will be dancing out of doors, in open-air safety with masks for some and clean hands for all. Here is our core group of RSCDS demonstration dancers at the Cours Josselin de Rohan in 2019. We last danced on 19th  Jan 2020. Sigh!

 

We will start dancing Sunday at 11am on the medieval tilting yard, now called La Promenade but traditionally known as the Cours de Josselin de Rohan, where the Dukes of Rohan organized their jousting from the 1100s until the late 1500s. This illustration is from de arte athletica in the 1540s:

                                Renaissance era illumination from Paulus Hector Mair (Wiki)

We are ATHLETICA people ourselves, for dancing is real sport: although I doubt if our muscles will function very precisely after 18 months without any jig, reel or strathspey. The fact that we will be dancing on hard earth, and not on a ballroom floor, will not matter much. I shall wear gym shoes, not dance ghillies, through which my feet would feel every pebble. Come and join us if you are near!

We hope everyone will soon be dancing again. Dancing in the open air has a long and happy tradition.

We will be dancing clothed. I will shake out my kilts and loosen my belt to allow space to accommodate my "Covid Bonus" of five or six pounds (I no longer trust my scales to tell me the truth), and drive over to the beautiful medieval city of #Josselin to renew my love of Scottish dance. Here is the castle.

 

 

Beltaine is a Celtic Festival of Fire and Maypole dancing for the Merry Month of May.

 And so we celebrated Beltaine 2021 on the Friday night of April 30th, which was considered the Night of Beltaine when our ancestors considered that a day began at dusk. Of course, we our celebration was Covid-restricted: only 6 people allowed to meet, and no travel allowed after 7pm. So our friends Mikael Morice and Sylvie Le Moel welcomed us to their home, where they built a maypole for six ribbons, and fire to warm six people: who drank Beltaine champagne and ate Beltaine oysters. Yummy. 

I wore the kilt, but our dancing was limited to skipping around the Maypole and wrapping it in coloured ribbons. When pandemic restrictions ease, we hope to use it for children's entertainment and education.

Beltaine is one of the great Celtic events - taken over by the Catholic Church in Germany as Sankt Walpurgisnacht:  the nun St Walpurga was born in Devon, and she carried her English version of the gospel to convert Germanic heathens. No one in England has ever heard of her!  In France, the cleansing fires of Beltaine became the Feast of St Jean (John) on June 24th. We can still celebrate the Start of the Season of Light, the end of the 40 days of Nauruz (the Persian New Year that our Indo-European ancestors celebrated, starting with the Spring Equinox on March 21st). And so we did. 

We danced, we read poetry, we heard music (notably Gounod's "Faust") and we ate good food, washed down with a magnum of rosé wine. We would have wanted this to be a celebration for the Jumelage, the Town Twinning between Pordic, our Breton village, and the Cornish town of Hayle which we cannot visit because of the pandemic..... and we could not celebrate with the 40-odd French members of the Pordic-Hayle Jumelage. We celebrated with the president, our friend Claudine Mizzon, vice-president (my wife Michelle) and with our hosts who are also Jumelage Board Members. With their talented 15-year-old son Pierre. So I wish everyone a very joyful Merry Month of May. And next year maybe we can celebrate Beltaine like this, with 100 people.

 

Here are Breton Druids celebrating BENTAINE and the Season of Light 

deep in the Forêt de Brocéliande, a place that is filled with Arthurian legends
 

Remembering HRH Prince Philip and thinking of our RSCDS Patron Her Majesty The Queen

 Prince Philip died on April 9^th 2021. The Duke of Edinburgh, Prince and First Gentleman of the United Kingdom (the title that placed him hierarchically above the Prince of Wales) was an outstanding British personality, a great servant to the United Kingdom and to the Commonwealth. A remarkable innovator of British engineering and of charitable activities, he liked to say “a good business makes money, and a good charity needs money.” He was talking mainly about youth activities he launched including the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme; the Playing Fields Association and many others. We share everyone’s sorrow.

In a very early letter shared with author Betty Shew, the then Princess Elizabeth wrote “we both loved dancing.”  I have visited the ballroom at Balmoral Palace (and many other palaces) and imagined how wonderful it would be to dance there. But videos of balls suggest that aristocrats are mostly ‘reelers’ rather than RSCDS dancers. If some of us in the RSCDS are a wee bit snobbish about our dancing, there is only sincerity in our admiration and affection for the Royal Family.

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN !

 

Imagine dancing on grass in June 2021 - let's do it!

The best way to start dancing again, as soon as most people have been vaccinated, will be to dance outside in the Summer sunshine. Risks of passing a virus are reduced twenty-fold in the open air. 

 People dance outside all the time, often on grass. Grass is not great for perfect foot positions, but who is going to have perfect feet after a year of watching videos?  Above is a photo my dear late father watching Highland Dance on grass at the Chichester Festival. Thousands of dancers participate in such festivals each year. The painting below shows that our ancestors gaily danced in the open air.  In June 2021, dancing on grass is the way to restart the health and happiness of dancing....  so talk to your friends and tell them to get ready for dancing on the lawn !
 

What should we think about Harry and Meghan? Let's wish them to be happy, and to dance.

 

 

Their royal interview with Oprah Winfrey seen on March 8th 2021, revealed unhappiness and fear during Harry and Meghan's life in London. Since we know that the British tabloid press (led by the abominable, anti-royalist Rupert Murdoch) hounded Princess Diana to her death, Harry was quite right to remove his wife from their nauseous racist persecution. On March 9th the self-satisfied White ITV broadcaster Piers Morgan was called out on live television by his Brown colleague Alex Beresford for consistently 'trashing' Meghan Markle on television....and Morgan couldn’t take it. He walked out of the studio and out of his job presenting ITV's Good Morning Britain. We are well rid of him. This was a considerable victory for Meghan.

Well done Alex Beresford, who seems a very pleasant man.

Meghan in Britain had to endure day-to-day racism, micro-aggressions, hypocrisy, and double standards screaming at her from the vicious unstoppable internet and from the tabloids. “I thought they would be fair” said Meghan: but the British tabloids are never ‘fair’ in their peddling of prejudice. I am not surprised that she was unhappy.

Meghan is a victim of the shameful racism in British society. Her mental health was put under strain, and Harry took her away from the hatred. It is tragic that the British have lost this beautiful and talented woman. Her departure is Britain’s loss …. And the Brits have lost their popular and interesting Prince Harry as well.

While I am glad Meghan won her court case against the Sunday Mail - and I hope she and Harry will win their other legal cases - law courts are a very American response to the problem. They are not necessarily the best path for the Royal Family to follow. “The Firm” usually sticks with the advice of 19^th century prime minister Benjamin Disraeli about press coverage: “Never complain, Never explain.”

 

When I have been attacked in the press (very rarely), I have followed that rule and it served me well.

While it might seem smart to meet with Oprah Winfrey this week, I fear that the interview will haunt them repeatedly over the next 40 years. Let’s hope they will find peace and happiness. Perhaps their hoped-for success in USA will mean that one day they will be better appreciated by the British. They might then reintegrate British public life. I pray so. In the meantime I wish them every happiness and good luck in California.

My piece of advice to the young couple: Make sure that you DANCE together. Nothing is healthier, or more romantic.

Waltzing in the magnificent Spanish Ballroom .... or waltzing all by yourself

 

This picture shows Waltzing in the magnificent Spanish Ballroom at Glen Echo Park in Maryland, USA ..... happy memories of yesteryear, before the Covid-19 pandemic closed public spaces and blocked our dancing passion. This picture shows the amazing SWALLOWTAIL dance band. 

Wanna hear them?  TRY   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duUlgCvjNzE

GOOD NEWS:  you can dance to Waltz music, even if you are alone. Tu peux danser avec toi-même.

Grete Wiesenthal (1885-1970) was an Austrian dancer, actor, choreographer, and dance teacher who found ballet too static, the Court Opera too stiff, too removed from the feel of the music. Using the waltz music of Strauss and Chopin, Grete became a Modern Dance Innovator, transforming the Viennese Waltz of her home city from a ballroom staple into a wildly ecstatic solo dance form. Her dramatic choreography with "swirling, euphoric movement and suspended arches of the body" was described as “ecstatic.” The dancers swirled in a “spherical dance” bent backwards with unbound hair and swinging dresses."  Here is Grete performing her Blue Danube solo spherical dance. Wild Waltzing!

Grete trouvait le ballet trop rigide, négligeant les émotions exprimées par la musique. Elle a donc inventé sa propre choréographie qui transforma le WALTZ en danse solo dramatique provoquant une ‘extase’ avec ses mouvements tournoyants ….. Une danse moderne de son époque.

This choreography made Wiesenthal a leading figure in Austrian dance and when she visited New York in 1912, Americans loved her!   You can read more, and hear my choice of Waltz music, if you read my monthly letter of jokes and stories THE DANCING HIPPO.  

visit my website: https://robinpoulton.com         English and French ..... and see my books !