The Ghillie Gazette

President’s Message

by Linda Gertz

Welcome to 2014 -- another year of fun dancing! Saturday, January 11 starting at 7:30 pm, we will be having our Hogmanay party with games & prizes. For our February 8th party I’m open to suggestions for something to make it special. Then before we know it, March 8th will be here along with our Workshop and Ball! One thing we will be needing is housing for the musicians & teachers. Several of them are so happy to be coming to Portland that they are bringing their spouses with them. So we need some folks to open up their homes to them. Marcy will be sending out an email soon so you can let her know if you have space. I will also be asking for volunteers for helping out at the workshop and ball for things like decorating, greeting people and handing out the workshop/ball packets, refreshments, etc. Debbie Mc​Robert is graciously handling the registrations. Cathi Chlebnikow & Holly Gibson have agreed to handle the raffle for me. I can’t say how much their help means to me! Pat Taylor’s DBE Chapter (Daughters of the British Empire) will be providing a wonderful lunch again. So we have many dancing experiences in our future to help keep us in shape & having fun! Hope to see you there.

Teacher’s Corner

by Richard Juzix

The ancients saw the world as a great cosmic struggle between the powers of darkness and the powers of light. They noticed as they watched, that at different times darkness seemed to be getting more of the light. They felt like they were watching two great cosmic wrestlers and every once in a while they would see that the wrestler of darkness would pin down the light and be ready to do it in. They noticed this because the days at this time of the year were getting shorter. And that had to mean that the light, the sun, was getting weaker. And as darkness pinned the sun to its back, and was ready to finish it off, they noticed the sun getting weaker and weaker and the dark getting longer and longer. They were afraid that someday, or some year, darkness would kill the sun and the light.

Around December 21 they noticed that the tables began to turn, and that the sun was rallying, regaining its strength, and suddenly the hero who was pinned down against the ground, with an adversary over him, gets a burst of strength and flips him over, climbs on top of him and starts pinning him down. All because around December 21 the days started getting longer. When they saw this happening it was time for feasting and festivities.

Scottish Country dancers are champions of the light and will not let darkness get any hold on them no matter how long they have been dancing. At the beginning of every dance they all rise off their heels ready to show their partners, and indeed all the world, a burst of energy in their first skip of a skip change of step, or their first digging down of their first strathspey, inviting their partners in the dance to enter into the festivities. Indeed, throughout the dance, whenever they enter the dance from a place on the side, it is always with that extra little burst of energy that gave hope and joy to the ancients. No dark mood can long survive on our dance floor! Our skips and our surges, and our twinkling eyes continue to bring light and joy to the cosmic floor.

Short version: put a little extra into the first step of the phrase.

January 11, 2014 Dance Program

by Don Gertz

February 8, 2014 Dance Program

by Linda Mae Dennis

March Workshop and Ball

Registration for our 35th annual workshop and ball is now open! Below is the program for the ball.

Eugene Burns Dance

by Robert Burger

Move to the Beat of the Music

by Tom Halpenny

December 26, 2013

I began learning Square dance five years ago, after Scottish dancing for the previous twelve years. The club caller and dance teacher Jim Hattrick explains his main goal for Square dance lessons is to get dancers to “move to the beat of the music”. Jim’s popular teaching methods regularly attract 70 club members and new dancers to his weekly lessons in a friendly social setting. Moving to the beat of the music, while having fun with friends, sends a message of positive feelings to the limbic brain.

This year I expanded my interest to explore Irish Ceili dance, English Country dance, Contra dance, and International Folk dance. I had an opportunity to observe how all these folk dance forms approach teaching dancers to move to the beat of the music.

Teachers of all dance forms guide dancers among the actions:

1. Dance while moving to the beat of the music.
2. Move to learn the pattern to the music or leader’s count.
3. Stand and observe others move to learn the pattern to the music or leader’s count.
4. Stand and listen to the leader talking.

An effective dance teacher strikes a balance among the necessary actions, with the goal to spend as much time as possible on action number one.

I originally observed that Square dance has more continuous motion compared with Scottish dance. The caller announces the next move just in time for dancers to flow through the dance figures. On the other hand, Scottish dance motion with the skip-change step is twice as fast as walking, and the pas-de-basque setting step is more aerobic, so we need resting time between bursts of energy.

After I learned Square dance, I became sensitive to standing while learning a Scottish dance. Geoffrey Selling discussed the topic in a TACTalk article, “Why Aren’t We Attracting More Dancers to Scottish Country Dancing? (especially from the greater dance community)”. The article explains how teaching a Scottish dance can involve excessive standing and surprisingly little dancing, compared with English Country dance’s greater motion.

http://www.rscds-swws.org/news/tac/WhyArentWe.pdf

Since I practice several folk dance forms, I designed an experiment to measure the percentage of time I am moving during various dance activities. I have a goal to keep moving, and I have been wearing a pedometer for three years to measure my progress. In addition to measuring steps, my current pedometer measures “Activity Time”. The timer runs while I am moving and pauses when I am inactive. I use a stopwatch to record the elapsed time during a dance or a dance class and I also record the activity time. I reset the activity timer and start the stopwatch after sets have formed and the dance leader begins teaching or briefing a dance, and stop the stopwatch after the final chord of the dance. I pause the stopwatch when some unavoidable technical delay or unrelated reason occurs. The ratio of activity time to elapsed time gives the percentage of time I was moving:

Activity Time Percentage = Activity Time ÷ Elapsed Time × 100

I gathered activity data for 72 dancing events over 16 weeks. Most of the data was for Scottish dance (52 hours) and Square dance (35 hours), and I made an effort to get a sense of activity for other folk dance forms. We can view my Average Activity Time Percentage results in the chart. The Square dance “Dance” activity led with 86%, and the “Class” activity averaged 60% when the caller taught the moves. The Scottish dance “Dance” activity averaged 51%, and the “Class” activity averaged 38% for teaching dances. English Country dance averaged 52%. Other folk dance forms averaged in the 61-73% range.

The activity time measurement excludes the intensity of physical activity and interest level, so we need to interpret the results. After each dancing event, I subjectively noted whether the event gave me a positive, neutral, or negative interest level. I observed a strong correlation between Activity Time Percentage and interest level. Most dance events were positive, however there were a significant number of Scottish dance classes with neutral or negative interest, especially classes with excessive standing and less listening to the beautiful music. All Scottish dance “Dances” were positive. Irish Ceili dance and Contra dance have the quality of being both aerobic and high Activity Time Percentage. Square dancers move to the beat of the music with walking steps, and I am able to increase the walking energy with more spring in my steps and travel the moves with a slightly longer path.

The Scottish dance class Activity Time Percentage averaged 38% with a range of 30-53%. Dance classes with a value greater than 40% were generally positive interest, while less than 40% gave me a neutral or negative interest level. I wonder how much Scottish dance class interest and attendance would improve if teachers could consistently raise the Activity Time Percentage above 40%, with a focus on moving to the beat of the music.

This article finally explains to fellow dancers and dance teachers who have been curious about the numbers I have been writing on Post-it notes while dancing. Interested readers can contact me to view the spreadsheet file with the activity time data. I would like to thank my dance teacher friends for your skilled and entertaining teaching efforts.

Activity Time Percentage

November & December Parties

by Linda Gertz

Our November party was very special with The Scottish Rose providing delightful dance music for us!! This year we had the treat of having Stephen Hui playing cello, with daughters Elisabeth & Lilyana making their debut playing fiddles with the orchestra. This special evening included buying up items from the Bizarre Bazaar.

The December party was a chance to come dressed as your favorite Christmas carol or tune. If you weren’t there you missed seeing some very clever costumes. The winners were – Linda Mae Dennis dressed a “All I want for Christmas is a Hippopotamus”, Caitlin Reynolds as “Good King Wenceslas”, & Katie Jones as “The Sugar Plum Fairy”. There were other great ideas too: Jingle Bells, Jingle Bell Rock, Deck the Hal(penny), Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, & more. We were also treated to music by Cynthia Soohoo & Maggie Hannahs. So a fun & interesting evening!

Members’ Email List

by Darrick Wong

Hello, members! You may have noticed that since the Ghillie Gazette went online in September, Marcy has been been manually emailing (most) of you whenever a new issue is out. Since that process is a bit rough and noisy, I've created an (e)mail list for branch members: pdx-rscds@portlandscottishdancers.org. Everyone who was a branch member as of January 1st, 2014 has been subscribed to the list, which is probably how you heard of this new issue.

This list is intended to be a low-traffic list to carry announcements of new newsletters and reminders about dancing events in the branch. You will be able to use the list to email everyone in the branch; please do not overuse the privilege.

You should have received an email welcoming you to the “pdx-rscds” mailing list. Please retain this message for your records. If you do not want to keep your subscription to the email list, the welcome message contains instructions about how to unsubscribe yourself; alternately, the webmaster (Darrick) can unsubscribe you.

When it is time to renew your membership, remember to check the box “Please ensure that I am subscribed to the members’ email list” on the renewal form to maintain your subscription into next year!

Upcoming Events

Here's a list of events coming up in the next ninety days. This calendar is kept up to date at http://portlandscottishdancers.org/events.html.

Membership

If you want to vote in the Annual General Meeting (AGM), your membership must be renewed before the Meeting, which is the second Monday in May.