DST - 40th ASCDS Festival

John Aitken from Nottingham Branch sent in this report on the Association of Scottish Country Dance Societies Festival. 

'The 40th Festival of the ASCDS (Association of Scottish Country Dance Societies) took place on Saturday 7 May 2022.  Member groups come from across an extended East Midlands area and meet once each year in Retford in Nottinghamshire.  The afternoon has a series of pairs of dances (a jig or reel plus a strathspey) with demonstration solos in between each pair from some of the participating teams.

The solos are sometimes known dances, or medleys of two or more known dances or sometimes dances written by members. This year the Newark team decided to bring some amusement to the afternoon by dancing a variation of Ian Powrie's Farewell to Auchterarder, this time for six couples, the original revised by Andrew Dewdney.  Rather than simply announcing the dance as a 6C Ian Powrie, the programme described the dance as "a 3 couple surprise for 2 sets", leaving spectators with the expectation that 12 dancers would dance on to the floor.  When the solo was announced the dancers danced on, but there were gaps in the two sets and the dancers looked worried, wondering where the other dancers were.  Aware they were on the floor and had to dance, they agreed with the Band (Chris Dewhurst) - who of course knew what was going to happen - that they would simply dance something they all knew, and apologised to the audience that they would not be able to dance their 3 couple surprise, which they had apparently been practising for months!

Halfway through, 4 dancers barged loudly into the hall hoping they were still in time to dance and the Band came to an abrupt halt with some discordant notes!  After a huddle of bad tempered dancers, the spectators were told there was insufficient time to dance the 3C surprise, and that the 4 dancers simply wanted to join in!  As the dancers formed a new set, the MC questioned whether they knew what they were doing as Ian Powrie is a dance for four couples!'

Thanks for this entertaining recap from the event. It's great to hear that fun was had by all! Don't forget, if you've got a good news story you'd like to share, email lyndsay.walker@rscds.org and you might see it featured in a future Dance Scottish Together newsletter.