Book 53 for 2023

25th April Update:

The resulting long-list was danced and whittled down to the final selection which will see dances from all around the RSCDS Globe published in Book 53:

Belfast

Edinburgh

Helensburgh & District

Isle of Skye

Northern Virginia

Ottawa

San Francisco

San Gabriel Valley

Stirling

Washington D.C.

And the International Branch

When working through the submissions, the committee realised that a number of branches had submitted some “Golden Oldies” – dances that have stood the test of the time, are very popular in their area but have not been published by the RSCDS. Therefore Book 53 for 2023 will be a bumper book including dances that look back as well as forward and will be published with two accompanying CDs.

For those branches that weren’t successful on this occasion, we would like to retain your dances to consider for future publications – we appreciate that no system is fool proof and that there may be hidden gems to discover and publish in years to come. Please do let us know at info@rscds.org if you have any issue with this.

Thanks are owed to everyone who has contributed in any way to the submission and selection process, especially Cecile Hascoet, Music Director Luke Brady and the members of Membership Services Committee for all of their valuable time.

With Book 53 in 2023, we look forward to bringing you the dances and the music alongside the stories of the people and places. With photos to illustrate the text, we hope this will be a book to appeal to all dancers in this special RSCDS Centenary year.

Yours sincerely

Angela Young

Angela A D Young

Convenor, Membership Services Committee

 

29th July Update: 

The trial dance period for Book 53 has now closed and Membership Services would like to thank all the Branches and Groups that participated. Your feedback and photos were gratefully received. The Committee also really appreciated all the time organisers spent setting up sessions and downloading materials - with 240 dance submissions the time you took was essential in progressing this publication in time for the Centenary. The Committee will now move to the next phase of the project and more details will follow in due course.

29th April Update: The Membership Services Committee is very grateful to all the branches and groups that offered to trial the dances for Book 53. Due to the high volume of responses and dances, the Committee is currently processing all the information and plans to share the allocated dances next week. Thank you for your understanding.

 

12th April Update: Thank you for your interest - the Book 53 Trial Groups list is now closed. The dances and accompanying music are expected to be sent out to participants in late April.

 

In 2023, the RSCDS will be marking its Centenary and we will be publishing a celebration book of dances – Book 53 in 2023. As with previous books we would now like members to be involved in the selection process.
 
Many thanks to all those branches who submitted dances. With nearly 100 branches sending in submissions, the Membership Services Committee are absolutely delighted with the response and are busy working their way through over 200 dances.
 
We are now looking for your help in trialling the dances and would love to hear from RSCDS Branches, Affiliated Groups and University Clubs who are willing to help with this process.
 
For the first time ever, we will be sending out the dances with music recordings and sheet music – enabling everyone to enjoy the dances with suggested named tunes. Those without named tunes will have shared resources to enable all dances to be trialled under the same conditions. The sheet music for the named and guide tunes will also be supplied for those branches and groups working with musicians.
 
We are planning to send out the dances and music in late April, giving a 2 month window for trialling and receiving feedback.
 
We would love to know which dances you want to see in Book 53. So, if you would like to be involved in the trialling process, please get in touch with your branch or local group and ask them to sign up to our Book 53 Trial Groups list before Friday 1st of April 2022.