Désirée and Robert recently shared their experiences of having Double the Fun dancing at both Johnsonville and Tawa clubs.

Below, Moira Broughton writes about dancing at her second club – Ngaio, and the advantages of being a ‘Double Agent’.

Moira with other Ngaio dancers dressed in colours of the rainbow at Tawa’s fun night in May 2015.

I discovered Scottish Country Dancing in February 2014 when I attended the beginners classes at Johnsonville club.

I was quickly enthralled and keen to improve my dancing but could not attend the Region’s evening classes which are always held on Tuesday nights.

I decided that the next best thing was to dance at another club so I began dancing on Thursday nights at Ngaio club which meets at the Khandallah Presbyterian church across from the New World supermarket.

There are many benefits to dancing at another club, quite apart from being able to dance twice each week. You are instructed by a different tutor who has a different style of teaching and emphasises different aspects of dancing, you learn more dances and you develop a wider circle of Scottish Country Dancing friends.

Ngaio is a small club (a full two sets is a good night!), there is a good ratio of experienced dancers to beginners and each dance is walked several times until the dancers are confident, which makes it an excellent club for beginners. I can still recall that on one of my early visits to Ngaio, Melva patiently demonstrated the footwork for ‘advance and retire’ and we all practised this movement. It is not always possible to do this in large, busy clubs.

There are a number of us who attend other clubs. I was tickled pink when Elena Lark, one of Johnsonville’s class of 2019 and an extremely competent dancer, referred to herself as a ‘double agent’ who dances at both Johnsonville and Tawa. It seemed very apt since she is Russian (I apologise in advance for this Cold War era racial stereotyping, Elena – no offence is intended).

I recommend you try it out and become a double agent – try the clubs at Ngaio, Tawa or Capital City (Thursday), or Kelburn (Wednesday). You will see several faces that you know from Johnsonville and you will enjoy meeting other dancers in the Scottish Country Dancing community.

from Moira