Traditional dance in the UK

We wanted to tell our partners all about traditional Scottish danc-

es. We hold a ceilidh in school and dance to accordion and pipe

music. Most tunes are called reels or jigs and dances have spe-

cial names like “The Dashing White Sergeant “ and “The Gay

Gordons”. Dancers may wear the traditional tartan and men wear

kilts sometimes.

Here are the instructions for a Scottish Dance

Flowers of Edinburgh

(8 couples in a group in 2 lines facing each other

“men” on left “ladies” on right)

Bars 1-8 man dances behind his line for 4 and back

Bars 9-16 lady dances behind her line for 4 and back

Bars 17-24 First couple join hands and dance down the middle of

the lines for 4 and back

Bars 25-28 all take one step left then one step right

Bars 29-32 first couple skip to the bottom and everyone move up

the set.

Repeat with a new couple at the beginning of the set.

We learnt the “Flowers of Edinburgh” dance and demonstrated it to

our parents. It was very energetic and we quickly got tired

We thought about the costumes of the dance. We

watched the swirl of the skirts and kilts in the dances. We

could see that the swirling cloth went well with the rhythm

of the music and dance. We experimented with different

materials to see if it would matter if we changed the mate-

rial of the clothes. The material had to be light but not too

floaty to hang properly for the dance.

We looked at the elements of the Scottish dances we had

seen. We chose to do a group dance as we thought it was

easier to see what everyone was doing. We looked at the

small elements that we needed; stepping in and out, moving

round the circle and hand actions First we tried out our own

steps and dances. Then, Lynn ,a dance teacher ,helped us to

put it together in a group dance