Johnsonville dancers enjoying The Royal Deeside Railway
Eleven Johnsonville Club members took to the floor to music from Mary and Duncan McDonald, Jean Malcolm and Heather Elder at Ngaio Town Hall on 13 July, helping Linden Club celebrate 60 years of dancing.
The evening’s programme reflected dances popular at Linden including a number by Wellington devisers: New Year Jig by Maureen Robson, The Kissing Bridge by Romaine Butterfield, The Wind on the Heath by Iain Boyd and The Five Row Reel by Linden’s former tutor of 52 years, Ian Simmonds.
Ian devised The Five Row Reel for Peter Elmes who provided the music at Linden Club nights for several decades during the time Ian was tutor. Peter composed the tune for the dance which is named for the five rows of treble keys on his button accordion.
Deviser Ian Simmonds dancing Linden’s Diamond
To commemorate Linden’s 60th anniversary, Ian devised a new dance; Linden’s Diamond, a 4×32 bar strathspey for four couples. After supper, a set of dancers demonstrated this dance before we all were invited to take the floor.
On this special occasion, it was fitting that Ian, Maureen and Lynne Hudson (a former tutor at Linden) were able to enjoy dancing Linden’s Diamond in the top set. Both Maureen and Lynne are past members of Johnsonville Club.
Watch a video below of Linden’s Diamond, taken by Johnsonville Club member Pat Reesby.
Our newer dancers – their smiles show the fun we had!
What a great evening we had at our first Tartan Night of the season on 8 April!
With eight sets on the floor, the hall was buzzing with lots of smiles and laughter along with enthusiastic applause for the fine music from Lynne Scott, Mary McDonald and Heather Elder.
It’s hard to pick the highlights. The Club’s tartan bunting once again magically transformed the hall with colour.
Rod’s excellent programme catered for both experienced and new dancers, and the music, good company and delicious supper all combined to make for a night of bonhomie.
Our very welcome guests from Capital City, Lower Hutt, Ngaio and Tawa Clubs added to the convivial atmosphere.
Thanks to everyone who contributed to making it such a good night, whether it was helping with hall setup or pack up, supper duties, wearing the tartan, supporting new dancers or being one of the many who volunteered to wash the tablecloths.
And of course, supper offerings were as good as always. Congratulations to young Emma for her successful first cake baking – whisky cake will always go down well at a Scottish do!
Lynne, Mary and Heather play their top-tapping music while Rod appreciates the fine efforts of our dancers!
Our first Tartan Night of the year is always very special, as our new dancers enjoy their first experience of Scottish Country Dancing to live music.
Our tutor Rod Downey says it was great to see so many of our new dancers (who have been dancing for only two months) doing so well at the Tartan Night.
He was particularly complimentary about them getting through Argyll’s Fancy (a 48bar Jig) – with the most welcome help from the more experienced dancers!
Some of our new dancers at our first club night on 4 March
After four weeks of our very successful Beginners’ Classes, our club year began on 4 March.
Thank you to our tutor Rod Downey for the work he put into the Beginners’ Classes and to club members who came along in support of a great group of more than 50 enthusiastic new dancers who joined us for some or all of the four classes.
It was lovely to catch up with old friends at the start of our new season as we welcomed 2018 club members back to the dance floor for 2019. We had seven sets on the floor!
The icing on the cake was seeing so many of our new dancers joining us at our first club night of the year. Once you’ve caught the Scottish Country Dancing bug, it’s hard to resist!
Trying out Pas de Basque
Trying out travelling Pas de Basque on 11 March with Rod in the lead
At our second club night on 11 March, Rod complimented newer dancers on their excellent efforts on Pas de Basque (commonly called setting) for their first time. We even had a brief introduction to travelling Pas de Basque which is used in the Poussette formation.
Dancing The White Cockade
We were thrilled dancers then confidently tried out their newly learned skills by dancing The White Cockade.
Lots of smiles while dancing The White Cockade
Celebrating St Patrick’s Day
On 18 March we took the opportunity to have an Irish flavour to our evening by celebrating St Patrick’s Day. Rod chose dances that had a connection to Ireland along with music that included toe-tapping Irish tunes.
Dancers responded to the call to let loose their inner Irish and the floor was a sea of green as we again practiced Pas de Basque as a forerunner to finding out more about the Poussette formation.
Practicing Pas de Basque on our St Patrick’s Day evening
Following some intensive instruction on how to use travelling Pas de Basque to dance the Poussette, dancers formed sets to try out this new formation by dancing Rory O’More from Book 1.
Leading down the middle and back in Rory O’More
The smiles, laughter and applause following Rory O’More were sure signs we had achieved our objective of dancing Poussettes!
Success with Poussettes!
Rod explained there are few examples of easier dances that include the Poussette. So he had devised a dance including this formation and with an Irish theme to suit the occasion!
Called The Coleraine Rant after one of New Zealand’s classic wines, Coleraine is also a town in Ireland.
As well as the Poussette, The Coleraine Rant also includes a tricky movement of leading down the middle and crossing to own sides with Lady under Man’s arm. (See the image below). Our dancers met the challenges of these new formations and danced the World Premiere of The Coleraine Rant with ease!
Having fun dancing the World Premiere of The Coleraine Rant!
At the St Patrick’s Day celebration, President Kristin Downey announced the Club has had 67 dancers sign-up as members in just three weeks! What a wonderful response.
Dancing Flowers of Edinburgh with the club bunting in the background
Our summer social event was held a week later this year, on Saturday 2 February.
Once again, the weather was hot and sunny on the bowling green and we had our biggest attendance yet, with 29 club members and 17 family members and friends, including 10 children.
Johnsonville Bowling Club volunteers gave us lots of helpful tips on bowling, but there were still a lot of bowls straying into unplanned territory …
As always, we had a lot of fun with the programme of mostly Scottish Country Dances Rod put together and enjoyed this year’s ceilidh items and a quiz on Scottish general knowledge questions.
Anne taught us a simple line dance – the ever increasing tempo of the Cowboy Hustle was a definite challenge! John M gave us his modern twist on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, as well as the eloquent traditional version, and then turned quiz master. Kate shared her talents, singing two pieces by Mozart: Ave Verum Corpus, and then Voi Che Sapete from the Marriage of Figaro. Thank you all for making our day special.
Thanks also to everyone who helped with setup and packup, brought delicious potluck food, and took on kitchen duties. Special thanks to Maureen S who once again coordinated registrations and potluck contributions.
