The 2023 Sydney Winter School in Kiama was our first big Scottish Country Dancing event. After two lovely days in Sydney, arriving at Kiama was great, quiet and near the sea. We’d booked early so had a cabin overlooking the bay.
There were about 180 dancers, so dinner was noisy, with lots of reunions between dancers, then the first social, which initially was a little overwhelming. The dances were all walked through, but quite a few of us had some nerves. We needn’t have been nervous, as we’ve found at all other events, Scottish Country Dancers’ shared love of dancing and music are a great environment.
Classes started Monday morning. New warm ups, step practice, working through all the detailed elements of formations. The key piece of advice; try not over do things, maybe say no to a social night dance, or skip afternoon optional classes, try to focus on classes first. Wednesday’s daily newsletter said we’d have ‘Wednesday legs’, where ‘your feet no longer feel like your own’. We did indeed have Wednesday legs, and then Thursday brain too.
Our teachers, Sally Ord (Tasmania) and Hazel Fish (Waimate), were great. Sally focused on the basics, steps, formations and phrasing for the first three days. Then Hazel showed great patience teaching more complex formations for the remainder of the week. Two that we thought were particularly good were the Spiral progression in A Castle in the Air (32R 2C/4L) Video here and the Promenade (Chaperoned) chain progression in The Countess of Dunmore’s Reel (32R 3C/4L) Video here
For those who can’t access the videos on Facebook, enjoy this video of Flowers of Edinburgh (plus party variations) with some dancers still in costume after the Roaring 20s night, for submission to the RSCDS 2023 Virtual Festival
We had two fantastic musicians. Ewan Galloway playing Accordion and James Gastineau-Hills playing fiddle.
Live music all week kept us going and was definitely a highlight of the event. There was live music at evening events like the Roaring 20s theme night and the Saturday Centenary Ball, but there were also party nights with the musicians.
At some point we reached saturation point, you simply can’t absorb any more information and bring this to your dancing at the same time. I (Sarah) woke up one morning having had dreams about Scottish Country Dancing formations!
Saturday night was the grand finale, and it came too soon. The class focused on dances from the evening Centenary ball and it really helped consolidate the last few days. The ball started with a Grand March, something we’d not done before, which is a fun way to setup the initial sets.
After a week dancing we thought we’d be a bit tired of dancing, but felt the exact opposite. What an awesome week, lots of fun, learning, socialising, and lots and lots of dancing. If you can get to a summer or winter school, do, they are a fabulous experience.
The next Australian winter school is in Gatton, near Brisbane 7-14 July 2024, we would highly recommend it. Here in New Zealand, we’re told there is no excuse not to attend the summer school to be held in Wellington in December 2024.
NOTE: Nice to see the Australian Winter School (and SCD) got lots of good publicity. The local Kiama newspaper, The Bugle, featured an article on the school. An item also appeared in the RSCDS website blog with a photo including club member Jeanette Watson in the foreground and Catherine a little out of focus in the background.
Catherine and Sarah Epps
9 November 2023
Photos: 46th Australian Winter School Kiama 2023
