North America takes the floor at Newcastle!

Claire Cunin from International Branch shares the journey to Newcastle

I am very excited to share that the very first North American Team has made its debut at the highly competitive Newcastle Festival!  What a journey we had!

How and why did this happen? Let’s not talk right off the bat about the number of G&Ts involved in the decision making…

I joined the Youth TAC committee very shortly after moving to Ontario, Canada in early 2023. Part of the TAC’s strategic plan is to organise a Scottish Country Dance competition in North America, similar to the Newcastle Festival. I am absolutely thrilled to see this type of competition starting in North America in the near future, as I think that participating in it creates a unique team spirit - both among local branches/groups, and also on a wider scope through teams like the International Team or now the North American Team - and builds a strong community among dancers from all horizons. It is also a great opportunity to improve dancing, technique, grow as a team and to develop connections with many wonderful dancers.

And so here we are, with Tristan Gerrie (Youth TAC committee member, based in Toronto), celebrating Canada Day (July 1st) - (yes, with a fair number of G&Ts) - talking about how great it would be to experience the Newcastle Festival before organising a similar event on this side of the pond!  The magic of both SCD & G&Ts together is how we started to build the first North American Team to go to Newcastle!

There was no formal recruitment process, but we reached out to various dancers who we thought might be interested, available, and have the dancing ability to participate and dance at this level. We wanted the team to be representative, and so tried to ensure a distribution of Canadian and American dancers: 6 from Canada (Erica De Gannes, Leo Roytman, Moira Korus and Tristan Gerrie from Toronto, Sarah Ferguson and myself from Kitchener-Waterloo), and 6 from the US (Adrian Velonis, Katherine Giacoletti and Terry Harvey from Philadelphia, Jennifer Schoonover from Boston, Christa Dove from Austin and Caroline Freeman from Charleston).

For the musicians recording our music, we also kept this in North America.

We danced to the wonderful music of Elizabeth Anderson (fiddle, Boston, USA) for the Ladies team and to the amazing duo Elizabeth and Ben Anderson (fiddle & cello, Boston, USA) for the Mixed team.

For our Display, the music of Reel of Seven gave a true international flavour, featuring tunes from Scotland, Ireland, England, United States, and even South Korea! (Fiddles: Janet Kurnick, Caroline McCaskey, Micah Reinhold, Patty van Winkle; Cello: Renata Bratt; Recorder: Sherryl Fawx; Percussion: Gary Campus; Piano / Band Leader: Andy Imbrie)

But let’s stop the suspense here. I am extremely proud of the outcome for the North America Team’s first participation:

• Joint 2nd (with East Scotland Dancers) in the Ladies category
• 3rd in the Mixed category.

Watch the videos

You will probably notice that the majority of our dances are from dance devisers from North America.

I hope you will enjoy our display theme Alice in Wonderland! Did you know that the first publication of Alice in Wonderland happened to be on the 26th November? Not the same year as the RSCDS was founded though! It was also a very nice experience to work with Andy Imbrie for the musical arrangement of our Alice in Wonderland display. If you wonder where our intro The Bunny Hop comes from, you can have a look at this clip.

I have had the chance to experience Newcastle Festival four times with Lyon Branch (France) - where I’m originally from - , but this was my first time as “team leader”! I hope my fellow team members from North America will remember their first Newcastle as amazing an experience as I found my first time years ago. Not to mention that after a full day of competition, you still have the stamina to dance to the evening dance programme that probably has some of the craziest dances you can find anywhere! Huge bravo to Martainn Skene and his band for their wonderful music.

I am very thankful that the team received a very warm welcome from all the other teams, organisers, and volunteers of the Festival. This has been an incredible, heart-warming and rewarding experience, and I am looking forward to next year already! Because yes, we are going again in 2025, with more dancers, more entries and even better prepared! 

We are also very grateful to our two amazing extra helpers: Alma Smith from Ontario (who is originally from Newcastle-upon-Tyne), during our first weekend of practice in Toronto and her help on the ground in Newcastle with all her local knowledge; and Ellie Briscoe from Virginia, for her coaching during our second weekend of practice in Philadelphia.

Again a big thank you to all the amazing musicians involved in this!

And a huge thank you also to Moira Korus, she has helped me and the team in many ways.  She has coached our teams and it wouldn’t have been possible without her.

Last but not least, we would like to thank TAC, Kitchener-Waterloo Branch, Delaware Valley Branch, Atlanta Branch, Carolinas Branch, Blue Ridge Scottish Dance School, Toronto and Boston individual dancers for their financial support. It has been a big help in offsetting the numerous costs involved. 

I am looking forward to seeing you on the dance floor!