Loralee Hyde: Warming up on a chilly winter afternoon

Wellington’s Tuesday afternoon general dancing class was in fine form on 20 June with more than four sets of dancers taking to the floor; including a good number of Johnsonville members and a few people the group hadn’t seen for a while.

In this wonderful session of dancing, tutor Catherine McCutcheon took us through a selection of dances from the upcoming Linden Annual Dance programme on 1 July

Finding our way through rather vigorous jigs and reels meant it didn’t take us long to warm up. And our brains got a good workout too, with some tricky formations and phrasing to master.

As organiser Pat Reesby said, “Surely there’s no better way to warm up on a chilly winter afternoon.”

What we danced

  • EH3 7AF, 32-bar jig devised by Roy Goldring. See video
  • A Trip to Bavaria, 32-bar reel devised by James MacGregor-Brown. See video
A Trip to Bavaria – Johnsonville dancers include Fiona and John at the left and Maureen at the right
Fiona, Liz, Tomoko and John dancing A Trip to Bavaria in the set in the foreground
  • Oriel Strathspey, 32-bar strathspey devised by Ian Simmonds (former tutor of Linden Club). See video
  • At the End of the Rainbow, 48-bar reel devised by Wellington tutor Iain Boyd. No video available.
  • City of Belfast, 32-bar strathspey devised by Lucy Mulholland. See video
  • Best Set in the Hall, 32-bar jig devised by Helen Greenwood (an Auckland deviser). See video

Two of dances, Oriel Strathspey and Best Set in the Hall, are on the programme for the Lower North Island RSCDS Centenary Ball on 4 November in Palmerston North. The afternoon class has given us a head start getting the hang of the intricacies of these dances.

Dancing to the end of a rainbow

The dance At the End of the Rainbow was ‘given’ to me by Iain Boyd on 19 April 2008. The dance is based on Cadgers In The Canongate, one of my favourite dances.

The title refers to the iris flower, my favourite flower. The iris is named after Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow and messenger to the Olympian gods. Among her duties was leading the souls of dead women to the Elysian Fields. In token of that faith, the Greeks planted purple irises on the graves of the women.

With being a lengthy 48-bar reel, it did feel as though the dance was leading us to the unreachable end of a rainbow. But fortunately, not with the same connotation as the duty Isis performed!

Loralee in a sea of irises, near Salem, Oregon, USA, May 2016

Thank you to Pat and Catherine for a great afternoon of dancing. It certainly warmed us up on a chilly winter’s day.

Loralee Hyde
20 June 2023

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